t herself mistress of the situation.

'I am going to tell you the story of the mistake you made,' she
continued, as Trent, his hands clasped between his knees, still looked
at her enigmatically. 'You will have to believe it, Mr Trent; it
is utterly true to life, with its confusions and hidden things and
cross-purposes and perfectly natural mistakes that nobody thinks twice
about taking for facts. Please understand that I don't blame you in the
least, and never did, for jumping to the conclusion you did. You knew
that I was estranged from my husband, and you knew what that so often
means. You knew before I told you, I expect, that he had taken up an
injured attitude towards me; and I was silly enough to try and explain
it away. I gave you the explanation of it that I had given myself
at first, before I realized the wretched truth; I told you he was
disappointed in me because I couldn't take a brilliant lead in society.
Well, that was true; he was so. But I could see you weren't convinced.
You had guessed what it took me much longer to see, because I knew how
irrational it was. Yes; my husband was jealous of John Marlowe; you
divined that.

'Then I behaved like a fool when you let me see you had divined it; it
was such a blow, you understand, when I had supposed all the humiliation
and strain was at an end, and that his delusion had died with him. You
practically asked me if my husband's secretary was not my lover, Mr
Trent--I have to say it, because I want you to understand why I broke
down and made a scene. You took that for a confession; you thought I was
guilty of that, and I think you even thought I might be a party to
the crime, that I had consented.... That did hurt me; but perhaps you
couldn't have thought anything else--I don't know.'

Trent, who had not hitherto taken his eyes from her face, hung his head
at the words. He did not raise it again as she continued. 'But really it
was simple shock and distress that made me give way, and the memory of
all the misery that mad suspicion had meant to me. And when I pulled
myself together again you had gone.'

She rose and went to an escritoire beside the window, unlocked a drawer,
and drew out a long, sealed envelope.

'This is the manuscript you left with me,' she said. 'I have read it
through again and again. I have always wondered, as everybody does, at
your cleverness in things of this kind.' A faintly mischievous smile
flashed upon her face, and was gone. I th