t moment and that of his return were the most awful of my
life. When he came back I had aged ten years, yet all that time I was
laughing and talking.

He did not rejoin me immediately; he went up-stairs. I knew why; he had
gone to see if the door to the fourth floor had been unlocked or simply
broken down. When he came back he gave me one look. Did he suspect me? I
could not tell. After that, there was another blank in my memory to the
hour when the guests were all gone, the house all silent, and we stood
together in a little room, where I had at last discovered him, withdrawn
by himself, writing. There was a loaded pistol on the table. The paper
he had been writing was his will.

"Humphrey," said I, placing a finger on the pistol, "why is this?"

He gave me a look, a hungry, passionate look, then he grew as white as
the paper he had just subscribed with his name.

"I am ruined," he murmured. "I have made unwarrantable use of Mrs.
Ransome's money; her return has undone me. Delight, I love you, but I
can not face the future. You will be provided for--"

"Will I?" I put in softly, very softly, for my way was strewn with
pitfalls and precipices. "I do not think so, Humphrey. If the money you
have put away is not yours, my first care would be to restore it. Then
what would I have left? A dowry of odium and despair, and I am scarcely
eighteen."

"But--but--you do not understand, Delight. I have been a villain, a
worse villain than you think. The only thing in my life I have not to
blush for is my love for you. This is pure, even if it has been selfish.
I know it is pure, because I have begun to suffer. If I could tell
you--"

"Mrs. Ransome has already told me," said I. "Who do you think unlocked
the door of her retreat? I, Humphrey. I wanted to save you from
yourself, and she understands me. She will never reveal the secret of
the years she has passed overhead."

Would he hate me? Would he love me? Would he turn that fatal weapon on
me, or level it again toward his own breast? For a moment I could not
tell; then the white horror in his face broke up, and, giving me a look
I shall never forget till I die, he fell prostrate on his knees and
lowered his proud head before me.

I did not touch it, but from that moment the schooling of our two hearts
began, and, though I can never look upon my husband with the frank joy I
see in other women's faces, I have learned not to look upon him with
distrust, and to thank God I d