not believing them--of looking
for the truth always in what they _don't_ say. It took me hours and
hours to convince myself that there's no trick under it, that there
can't be any," she explained.

"Then you _are_ convinced now?" escaped from Durham; but the shadow
of his question lingered no more than the flit of a wing across her
face.

"I am convinced because the facts are there to reassure me.
Christiane tells me that Monsieur de Malrive has consulted his
lawyers, and that they have advised him to free me. Maitre
Enguerrand has been instructed to see my lawyer whenever I wish it.
They quite understand that I never should have taken the step in
face of any opposition on their part--I am so thankful to you for
making that perfectly clear to them!--and I suppose this is the
return their pride makes to mine. For they _can_ be proud
collectively--" She broke off and added, with happy hands
outstretched: "And I owe it all to you--Christiane said it was your
talk with her that had convinced them."

Durham, at this statement, had to repress a fresh sound of
amazement; but with her hands in his, and, a moment after, her whole
self drawn to him in the first yielding of her lips, doubt perforce
gave way to the lover's happy conviction that such love was after
all too strong for the powers of darkness.

It was only when they sat again in the blissful after-calm of their
understanding, that he felt the pricking of an unappeased distrust.

"Did Madame de Treymes give you any reason for this change of
front?" he risked asking, when he found the distrust was not
otherwise to be quelled.

"Oh, yes: just what I've said. It was really her admiration of
_you_--of your attitude--your delicacy. She said that at first she
hadn't believed in it: they're always looking for a hidden motive.
And when she found that yours was staring at her in the actual words
you said: that you really respected my scruples, and would never,
never try to coerce or entrap me--something in her--poor
Christiane!--answered to it, she told me, and she wanted to prove to
us that she was capable of understanding us too. If you knew her
history you'd find it wonderful and pathetic that she can!"

Durham thought he knew enough of it to infer that Madame de Treymes
had not been the object of many conscientious scruples on the part
of the opposite sex; but this increased rather his sense of the
strangeness than of the pathos of her action. Yet Madame de Malriv