he inquired, her large dark eyes turned
seriously to mine.

I hesitated. Should I tell her the truth openly and honestly?

"Because of a fact which came to my knowledge," I answered, after a
long pause.

"What fact?" she asked with some anxiety.

"I made a discovery," I said ambiguously.

"Regarding me?"

"Yes, regarding yourself," I replied, with my eyes fixed full upon
hers. I saw that she started at my words, her countenance fell, and
she caught her breath quickly.

"Well, tell me what it is," she asked in a hard tone, a tone which
showed me that she had steeled herself for the worst.

"Forgive me if I speak the truth," I exclaimed. "You have asked me,
and I will be perfectly frank with you. Well, I discovered amongst old
Mr. Courtenay's papers a letter written by you several years ago which
revealed the truth."

"The truth!" she gasped, her face blanched in an instant. "The truth
of what?"

"That you were once engaged to become his wife."

Her breast heaved quickly, and I saw that my words had relieved her of
some grave apprehension. When I declared that I knew "the truth" she
believed that I spoke of the secret of Courtenay's masquerading. The
fact of her previous engagement was, to her, of only secondary
importance, for she replied:

"Well, and is that the sole cause of your displeasure?"

I felt assured, from the feigned flippancy of her words, that she held
knowledge of the strange secret.

"It was the main cause," I said. "You concealed the truth from me, and
lived in that man's house after he had married Mary."

"I had a reason for doing so," she exclaimed, in a quiet voice. "I did
not live there by preference."

"You were surely not forced to do so."

"No; I was not forced. It was a duty." Then, after a pause, she
covered her face with her hands and suddenly burst into tears, crying,
"Ah, Ralph! If you could know all--all that I have suffered, you would
not think ill of me! Appearances have been against me, that I know
quite well. The discovery of that letter must have convinced you that
I was a schemer and unworthy, and the fact that I lived beneath the
roof of the man who had cast me off added colour to the theory that I
had conceived some deep plot. Probably," she went on, speaking between
her sobs, "probably you even suspected me of having had a hand in the
terrible crime. Tell me frankly," she asked, gripping my arm, and
looking up into my face. "Did you ever suspect me of being th