her tone grew
impatient. "I only wanted to make sure that I was safe with you. It was
no little thing that drove me to come. I am a proud woman, Mr. Heath,
and I do not usually ask favours, yet I ask you now--"

"Not a favour," he said, taking her up quickly. "God knows I have every
reason to help you if I can. Does Hartley suspect you? Does he question
you? Does he try to wring admissions out of you?"

In the darkness Heath's voice rang hard and, metallic, like the voice of
a man whose thoughts return upon something that maddens him.

"He has not done so, but he has asked me questions that made me
frightened. It is a terrible thing to be afraid."

"And Joicey?" said Heath in a quiet voice. "I saw Joicey, but he did not
stop to speak to me. Has he, too, been interrogated?"

"So far as I know, he has not. But this question presses only on me.
What took you there is, I feel sure, easily accounted for, and what took
Mr. Joicey there is not likely to be a matter of the smallest
importance; it is _I_ who suffer, it is on me that all this weight lies.
If the police begin investigations they come close upon the fact that I
went there to meet a man whom my husband has forbidden me to meet. Any
little turn of evidence that involves me, any little accident that
obliges me to admit it, and I am lost,"--her voice thrilled and pleaded.

"It is you who are lost," he echoed dully. "I can understand how you
feel. If I can ease your burden or lessen the anxiety you suffer from,
you may depend upon me, Mrs. Wilder. This matter is a dark road where I,
too, walk blind, not knowing the path I follow, but, at least, I can
give you my word that under no circumstances shall I be led to mention
your name. You can be sure of that, Mrs. Wilder. If I can add your
trouble to my own burden I shall not feel its weight, but I would
counsel you to be honest with your husband. Tell him the truth."

"I will," said Mrs. Wilder, with an acquiescence that came too quickly.
"I assure you that I will, but even when I do, you see what a position
the least publicity places me in?"

Heath got up and paced the floor with long, restless strides.

"Publicity. The open avowal of a hidden thing; the knowledge that the
whole world judges and condemns, and does not understand."

"That is what I feel."

After all, he was more human than she had expected. Clarice Wilder had
looked upon the Rev. Francis as a hermit, an ascetic, whose
comprehension was limited;