lip away from the
subject if I approached it. Wasn't I right? Tell me, please." He nodded.
"But why?" He remained silent.

"Well," she said, "I will finish what I had to say, and then you will
tell me, I hope, why you had to make it so hard. When I began to
understand that you wouldn't let me talk of the matter to you, it made
me more determined than ever. I suppose you didn't realize that I would
insist on speaking even if you were quite discouraging. I dare say I
couldn't have done it if I had been guilty, as you thought. You walked
into my parlor to-day, never thinking I should dare. Well, now you see."

Mrs. Manderson had lost all her air of hesitancy. She had, as she was
wont to say, talked herself enthusiastic, and in the ardor of her
purpose to annihilate the misunderstanding that had troubled her so long
she felt herself mistress of the situation.

"I am going to tell you the story of the mistake you made," she
continued, as Trent, his hands clasped between his knees, still looked
at her enigmatically. "You will have to believe it, Mr. Trent; it is so
utterly true to life, with its confusions and hidden things and
cross-purposes and perfectly natural mistakes that nobody thinks twice
about taking for facts. Please understand that I don't blame you in the
least, and never did, for jumping to the conclusion you did. You knew
that I had no love for my husband, and you knew what that so often
means. You knew before I told you, I expect, that he had taken up an
injured attitude towards me; and I was silly enough to try and explain
it away. I gave you the explanation of it that I had given myself at
first, before I realized the wretched truth; I told you he was
disappointed in me because I couldn't take a brilliant lead in society.
Well, that was true. He was so. But I could see you weren't convinced.
You had guessed what it took me much longer to see, because I knew how
irrational it was. Yes; my husband was jealous of John Marlowe; you had
divined that.

"Then I behaved like a fool when you let me see you had divined it; it
was such a blow, you understand, when I had supposed all the humiliation
and strain was at an end, and that his delusion had died with him. You
practically asked me if my husband's secretary was not my lover, Mr.
Trent--I _have_ to say it, because I want you to understand why I broke
down and made a scene. You took that for a confession; you thought I was
guilty of that, and I think you even