to the very last. Though I knew that a wall had been made between us now
that could never be broken down--even if he asked my pardon and obtained
it--I never once closed the door between our rooms at night.

"And so it went on. I never could go through such a time again. My
husband showed silent and cold politeness to me always when we were
alone--and that was only when it was unavoidable. He never once alluded
to what was in his mind; but I felt it, and he knew that I felt it. Both
of us were stubborn in our different attitudes. To Mr. Marlowe he was
more friendly, if anything, than before--heaven only knows why. I
fancied he was planning some sort of revenge; but that was only a fancy.
Certainly Mr. Marlowe never knew what was suspected of him. He and I
remained good friends, though we never spoke of anything intimate after
that disappointment of his; but I made a point of seeing no less of him
than I had always done. Then we came over to England and to White
Gables, and after that followed--my husband's dreadful end."

She threw out her right hand in a gesture of finality. "You know about
the rest--so much more than any other man," she added; and glanced up at
him with a quaint expression.

Trent wondered at that look. But the wonder was only a passing shadow on
his thought. Inwardly his whole being was possessed by thankfulness. All
the vivacity had returned to his face. Long before Mrs. Manderson ended
her story he had recognized the certainty of its truth, as from the
first days of their renewed acquaintance he had doubted the story that
his imagination had built up at White Gables, upon foundations that
seemed so good to him.

He said: "I don't know how to begin the apologies I have to make. There
are no words to tell you how ashamed and disgraced I feel when I realize
what a crude, cock-sure blundering at a conclusion my suspicion was.
Yes, I suspected--you! I had almost forgotten that I was ever such a
fool. Almost; not quite. Sometimes when I have been alone I have
remembered that folly, and poured contempt on it. I have tried to
imagine what the facts were. I have tried to excuse myself."

She interrupted him quickly. "What nonsense. Do be sensible, Mr. Trent.
You had only seen me on two occasions in your life before you came to me
with your solution of the mystery." Again the quaint expression came and
was gone. "If you talk of folly, it really is folly for a man like you
to pretend to a woman like me t