his name, but I think it was a Frenchman."

"Well, I quoted him. Pretended to a like perspicacity: it was a
sneaking, cowardly ruse to know more of her."

"Had she told you nothing?"

"All this week I had known no more than what we both knew or
surmised--that there was a secret panel somewhere."

"And in your tapping for hollows----?"

"The spring flew; yes, but not as you suppose. I pretended that a sight
of even a few of her past dresses might suggest a fragmentary romance,
though of course she was too young for histories such as were meant by
the originator of the idea. She is only twenty-four," he parenthesised,
"was married at nineteen; I learnt that."

"Well?"

"She snapped at my offer--was almost ardent in her wish to test me.

"'I could show you the most important dresses I have worn in the last
seven years,' she said. 'I used to clothe myself in gowns to match my
moods at one time,' she added.

"I saw myself face to face with the last fence, and baulked. I began
backing out. There were soft places, I could not tell how deep or how
soft, beyond, and I was nervous.

"'Come,' she urged, spurring with almost excited insistence, 'if you
outline with the smallest correctness I will supply the lights and
shades truthfully.'

"She said the last words with pathetic emphasis that frightened me.

"I determined to change the subject. Caught the little finger of her
left hand and kissed it. Did I tell you she had never shaken hands with
me with her right--that she had explained she kept it for secular and
the other for sacred use? I kissed it, in the centre of her palm, and
her body curled like a sensitive plant with the warmth of my lips. I
blushed for having doubted her purity or her love."

He buried his head in his hands and seemed disinclined to reveal more.
But after a long pause he began afresh.

"I'm telling you everything--exactly as it happened--that you may
reverence her. She's too clean and transparent to be clouded by vulgar
doubt," he said, rather to himself than to me.

"She insisted on my accompanying her to a sparsely-furnished room," he
went on. "The walls were fitted with hooks and slides to improvise a
wardrobe.

"'I have kept some of my gowns since I was a girl,' she sighed.

"'Those, I suppose, that were episodic?' I affected to laugh to waive
her seriousness.

"'Oh, the everyday ones were thrown away--worn out: these were most of
them connected with'--she hesitated--'eventful oc