ss Thompkins--especially after I had
taken her for a walk." He smiled, but his voice was rather wistful. Audrey
liked him prodigiously in that moment.

"Foolish man!" she replied, with a smile far surpassing his, and she rested
on her oars, taking care to keep the boat in the middle of the channel. "Do
you know why I asked you to come out? I wanted to talk to you quite
privately. It is easier here."

"I'm so glad!" he said simply and sincerely. And Audrey thought: "Is it
possible to give so much pleasure to an important and wealthy man with so
little trouble?"

"Yes," she said. "Of course you know who I really am, don't you, Mr.
Gilman?"

"I only know you're Mrs. Moncreiff," he answered.

"But I'm not! Surely you've heard something? Surely it's been hinted in
front of you?"

"Never!" said he.

"But haven't you asked--about my marriage, for instance?"

"To ask might have been to endanger your secret," he said.

"I see!" she murmured. "How frightfully loyal you are, Mr. Gilman! I do
admire loyalty. Well, I dare say very, very few people do know. So I'll
tell you. That's my home over there." And she pointed to Flank Hall, whose
chimneys could just be seen over the bank.

"I admit that I had thought so," said Mr. Gilman.

"But naturally that was your home as a girl, before your marriage."

"I've never been married, Mr. Gilman," she said. "I'm only what the French
call a _jeune fille_."

His face changed; he seemed to be withdrawing alarmed into himself.

"Never--been married?"

"Oh! You _must_ understand me!" she went on, with an appealing vivacity. "I
was all alone. I was in mourning for my father and mother. I wanted to see
the world. I just had to see it! I expect I was very foolish, but it was
so easy to put a ring on my finger and call myself Mrs. And it gave me
such advantages. And Miss Ingate agreed. She was my mother's oldest
friend.... You're vexed with me."

"You always seemed so wise," Mr. Gilman faltered.

"Ah! That's only the effect of my forehead!"

"And yet, you know, I always thought there was something very innocent
about you, too."

"I don't know what _that_ was," said Audrey. "But honestly I acted for the
best. You see I'm rather rich. Supposing I'd only gone about as a young
marriageable girl--what frightful risks I should have run, shouldn't I?
Somebody would be bound to have married me for my money. And look at all I
should have missed--without this ring! I should never have met