thought I might be a party to the
crime, that I had consented.... That did hurt me; but perhaps you
couldn't have thought anything else--I don't know."

Trent, who had not hitherto taken his eyes from her face, hung his head
at the words. He did not raise it again as she continued. "But really it
was simple shock and distress that made me give way, and the memory of
all the misery that mad suspicion had meant to me. And when I pulled
myself together again you had gone."

She rose and went to an escritoire beside the window, unlocked a drawer,
and drew out a long, sealed envelop.

"This is the manuscript you left with me," she said. "I have read it
through again and again. I have always wondered, as everybody does, at
your cleverness in things of this kind." A faintly mischievous smile
flashed upon her face and was gone. "I thought it was splendid, Mr.
Trent--I almost forgot that the story was my own, I was so interested.
And I want to say now, while I have this in my hand, how much I thank
you for your generous, chivalrous act in sacrificing this triumph of
yours rather than put a woman's reputation in peril. If all had been as
you supposed, the facts must have come out when the police took up the
case you put in their hands. Believe me, I understood just what you had
done, and I never ceased to be grateful even when I felt most crushed by
your suspicion."

As she spoke her thanks her voice shook a little, and her eyes were
bright. Trent perceived nothing of this. His head was still bent. He did
not seem to hear. She put the envelop into his hand as it lay open, palm
upwards, on his knee. There was a touch of gentleness about the act
which made him look up.

"Can you--" he began slowly.

She raised her hand as she stood before him. "No, Mr. Trent, let me
finish before you say anything. It is such an unspeakable relief to me
to have broken the ice at last, and I want to end the story while I am
still feeling the triumph of beginning it." She sank down into the sofa
from which she had first risen. "I am telling you a thing that nobody
else knows. Everybody knew, I suppose, that something had come between
us, though I did everything in my power to hide it. But I don't think
any one in the world ever guessed what my husband's notion was. People
who know me don't think that sort of thing about me, I believe. And his
fancy was so ridiculously opposed to the facts. I will tell you what the
situation was. Mr. Marlowe and