k
dress. She had, indeed, been sitting there since Mrs. Forrester went. He
looked about the room, noting, with dull wonder, the grouped chairs, and
open piano. "You have had people here?"

"Yes. The Lippheims came and played to me. I would have written to them
and told them not to come; but I forgot. And Mrs. Forrester has been
here."

"Quite a reception," said Gregory. He walked to the window and looked
out. "Well," he said, not turning to his wife, "what have you to say to
me, Karen?" His tone was dry and even ironic.

"Mrs. Forrester came to tell me," said Karen, "that you had seen her
this morning."

"Yes. Well?"

"And she told me," Karen went on, "that you had a great deal to say to
her about my guardian--things that you have never dared to say to me."

He turned to her now and her eyes from across the room fixed themselves
upon him.

"I will say them to you if you like," said Gregory, after a moment. He
leaned against the side of the window and folded his arms. And he
examined his wife with, apparently, the cold attention that he would
have given to a strange witness in the box. And indeed she was strange
to him. Over his aching and dispossessed heart he steeled himself in an
impartial scrutiny.

"It is true, then," said Karen, "that you believe her tyrannous and
dangerous and unscrupulous, and that you think her devoured by egotism,
and hypocritical in her feeling for me, and that you hope that I may
never see her again?"

She catalogued the morning's declarations accurately, like the witness
giving unimpeachable testimony. But it was rather absurd to see her as
the witness, when, so unmistakably, she considered herself the judge and
him the criminal in the dock. There was relief in pleading guilty to
everything. "Yes: it's perfectly true," he said.

She looked at him and he could discover no emotion on her face.

"Why did you not tell me this when you asked me to marry you?" she
questioned.

"Oh--I wasn't so sure of it then," said Gregory. "And I loved you and
hoped it would never come out. I didn't want to give you pain. That's
why I never dared tell you, as you put it."

"You wanted to marry me and you knew that if you told me the truth I
would not marry you; that is the reason you did not dare," said Karen.

"Well, there's probably truth in that," Gregory assented, smiling; "I'm
afraid I was an infatuated creature, perhaps a dishonest one. I can't
expect you to make allowances for my condit