ed and silent that evening--not angry. He was always
perfectly cold and expressionless to me after he took this idea into his
head. After dinner he only spoke to me once. Mr. Marlowe was telling him
about some horse he had bought for the farm in Kentucky, and my husband
looked at me and said, 'Marlowe may be a gentleman, but he seldom quits
loser in a horse trade.' I was surprised at that, but at that time--and
even on the next occasion when he found us together--I didn't understand
what was in his mind. That next time was the morning when Mr. Marlowe
received a sweet little note from the girl asking for his
congratulations on her engagement. It was in our New York house. He
looked so wretched at breakfast that I thought he was ill, and
afterwards I went to the room where he worked, and asked what was the
matter. He didn't say anything, but just handed me the note, and turned
away to the window. I was very glad that was all over, but terribly
sorry for him too, of course. I don't remember what I said, but I
remember putting my hand on his arm as he stood there staring out on the
garden; and just then my husband appeared at the open door with some
papers. He just glanced at us, and then turned and walked quietly back
to his study. I thought he might have heard what I was saying to comfort
Mr. Marlowe, and that it was rather nice of him to slip away. Mr.
Marlowe neither saw nor heard him. My husband left the house that
morning for the West while I was out. Even then I did not understand. He
used often to go off suddenly like that, if some business project called
him.

"It was not until he returned a week later that I grasped the situation.
He was looking white and strange, and as soon as he saw me he asked me
where Mr. Marlowe was. Somehow the tone of his question told me
everything in a flash.

"I almost gasped. I was wild with indignation. You know, Mr. Trent, I
don't think I should have minded at all if any one had thought me
capable of openly breaking with my husband and leaving him for somebody
else. I dare say I might have done that. But that coarse suspicion ... a
man whom he trusted ... and the notion of concealment. It made me see
scarlet. Every shred of pride in me was strung up till I quivered, and I
swore to myself on the spot that I would never show by any word or sign
that I was conscious of his having such a thought about me. I would
behave exactly as I always had behaved, I determined--and that I did, up