d been discovered, and their eyes remained fixed on each
other.

'Do I guess rightly?' he asked, with wan quietude. '_You_ were her
scribe through all this?'

'It was necessary,' said Edith.

'Did she dictate every word you ever wrote to me?'

'Not every word.'

'In fact, very little?'

'Very little.'

'You wrote a great part of those pages every week from your own
conceptions, though in her name!'

'Yes.'

'Perhaps you wrote many of the letters when you were alone, without
communication with her?'

'I did.'

He turned to the bookcase, and leant with his hand over his face; and
Edith, seeing his distress, became white as a sheet.

'You have deceived me--ruined me!' he murmured.

'O, don't say it!' she cried in her anguish, jumping up and putting her
hand on his shoulder. 'I can't bear that!'

'Delighting me deceptively! Why did you do it--_why_ did you!'

'I began doing it in kindness to her! How could I do otherwise than try
to save such a simple girl from misery? But I admit that I continued it
for pleasure to myself.'

Raye looked up. 'Why did it give you pleasure?' he asked.

'I must not tell,' said she.

He continued to regard her, and saw that her lips suddenly began to
quiver under his scrutiny, and her eyes to fill and droop. She started
aside, and said that she must go to the station to catch the return
train: could a cab be called immediately?

But Raye went up to her, and took her unresisting hand. 'Well, to think
of such a thing as this!' he said. 'Why, you and I are
friends--lovers--devoted lovers--by correspondence!'

'Yes; I suppose.'

'More.'

'More?'

'Plainly more. It is no use blinking that. Legally I have married
her--God help us both!--in soul and spirit I have married you, and no
other woman in the world!'

'Hush!'

'But I will not hush! Why should you try to disguise the full truth,
when you have already owned half of it? Yes, it is between you and me
that the bond is--not between me and her! Now I'll say no more. But, O
my cruel one, I think I have one claim upon you!'

She did not say what, and he drew her towards him, and bent over her. 'If
it was all pure invention in those letters,' he said emphatically, 'give
me your cheek only. If you meant what you said, let it be lips. It is
for the first and last time, remember!'

She put up her mouth, and he kissed her long. 'You forgive me?' she said
crying.

'Yes.'

'But you are ruined!'