happy life ought to be no reason why one should not
live a good life."

"But to live a good life would it be necessary to reveal the evil you
had done? Cannot one go on and do right without confessing to the world
a past wrong?"

"Yes, unless by its confession he can in some way make reparation."

My answer seemed to trouble her. Drawing back, she stood for one moment
in a thoughtful attitude before me, her beauty shining with almost a
statuesque splendor in the glow of the porcelain-shaded lamp at her
side. Nor, though she presently roused herself, leading the way into the
drawing-room with a gesture that was allurement itself, did she recur to
this topic again; but rather seemed to strive, in the conversation that
followed, to make me forget what had already passed between us. That she
did not succeed, was owing to my intense and unfailing interest in her
cousin.

As I descended the stoop, I saw Thomas, the butler, leaning over the
area gate. Immediately I was seized with an impulse to interrogate him
in regard to a matter which had more or less interested me ever since
the inquest; and that was, who was the Mr. Robbins who had called
upon Eleanore the night of the murder? But Thomas was decidedly
uncommunicative. He remembered such a person called, but could not
describe his looks any further than to say that he was not a small man.

I did not press the matter.

XVII. THE BEGINNING OF GREAT SURPRISES

"Vous regardez une etoile pour deux motifs, parce qu'elle est
lumineuse et parce qu'elle est impenetrable. Vous avez aupres
de vous un plus doux rayonnement et un pas grand mystere, la femme."
Les Miserables.

AND now followed days in which I seemed to make little or no progress.
Mr. Clavering, disturbed perhaps by my presence, forsook his usual
haunts, thus depriving me of all opportunity of making his acquaintance
in any natural manner, while the evenings spent at Miss Leavenworth's
were productive of little else than constant suspense and uneasiness.

The manuscript required less revision than I supposed. But, in the
course of making such few changes as were necessary, I had ample
opportunity of studying the character of Mr. Harwell. I found him to be
neither more nor less than an excellent amanuensis. Stiff, unbending,
and sombre, but true to his duty and reliable in its performance, I
learned to respect him, and even to like him; and this, too, though I
saw the liking was not r