l in gray.

She advanced promptly, as if she had been called. At the door of the car
she stood for a few minutes in conversation with the occupant. For one
of the parties at least that method of communication was apparently not
satisfactory, for he stepped out, dismissed the cab, and accompanied the
girl through the little opening into the Park. In a second or two they
were out of sight, down one of the sloping pathways.

* * * * *

During the next two months Edith had no explanation of this mystery, nor
did she seek one. After the first days of amazement and questioning she
fell back on what she took to be her paramount duty--to trust. She
argued that if he had seen her in some analogous situation, however
astounding, he would have trusted her to the uttermost; and she must do
the same by him. There were ever so many reasons, she said to herself,
that would not only account for the incident, but do him credit. The
girl might be a stenographer dismissed from his office, asking to be
reinstated; she might be a poor relation making an appeal; she might be
a wretched woman toward whom he was acting on behalf of a friend. Such
cases, and similar cases, arose frequently.

The wonder was, however, that he never spoke of it. There was that side
to it, too. It induced another order of reflection. He was so much in
the habit of relating to her, partly for her amusement, partly for his
own, all the happenings, both trivial and important, of each day, that
his silence with regard to this one, which surely must be considered
strange--strange, if no more--was noticeable. A wretched woman toward
whom he was acting on behalf of a friend! It surely couldn't, _couldn't_
be a wretched woman toward whom he was acting, not on behalf of a
friend, but....

That it might be all over and done with would make no difference. Of
course it was all over and done with--if it was that. No man could love
a woman as he had loved his wife during the past six or seven years, and
still--But it _wasn't_ that. It never _had_ been that. _If_ it had
been--even before they were married, even before he knew her--But she
would choke that thought back. She would choke everything back that told
against him. She developed the will to trust. She developed a trust that
acted on her doubts like a narcotic--not solving them, but dulling their
poignancy into stupor.

So March went out, and April passed, and May came in, with leaves o