such plot assuredly included the discoverer of the document. Could he in
his heart charge Adela with that? There were two voices at his ear, and
of equal persuasiveness. Even to look into her face did not silence
the calumnious whispering. Her beauty was fuel to his jealousy, and his
jealousy alone made the supposition of her guilt for a moment
tenable. It was on his lips to accuse her, to ease himself with savage
innuendoes, those 'easy things to understand' which come naturally from
such a man in such a situation. But to do that would be to break with
her for ever, and the voice that urged her innocence would not let him
incur such risk. The loss of his possessions was a calamity so great
that as yet he could not realise its possibility; the loss of his wife
impressed his imagination more immediately, and was in this moment the
more active fear.

He was in the strange position of a man who finds all at once that he
_dare_ not believe that which he has been trying his best to believe. If
Adela were guilty of plotting with Eldon, it meant that he himself was
the object of her utter hatred, a hideous thought to entertain. It threw
him back upon her innocence. Egoism had to do the work of the finer
moral perceptions.

'Isn't it rather strange,' he said, not this time sneeringly, but
seeking for support against his intolerable suspicions, 'that you never
moved those buffets before?'

'I never had need of them.'

'And that hole has never been cleaned out?'

'Never; clearly never.'

She had risen to her feet, impelled by a glimmering of the thought
in which he examined her. What she next said came from her without
premeditation. Her tongue seemed to speak independently of her will.

'One thing I have said that was not true. It was not money that slipped
down, but my ring. I had taken it off and laid it on the Prayer-book.'

'Your ring?' he repeated, with cold surprise. 'Do you always take your
ring off in church, then?'

As soon as the words were spoken she had gone deadly pale. Was it well
to say that? Must there follow yet more explanation? She with difficulty
overcame an impulse to speak on and disclose all her mind, the same kind
of impulse she had known several times of late. Sheer dread this time
prevailed. The eyes that were upon her concealed fire; what madness
tempted her to provoke its outburst?

'I have never done so before,' she replied confusedly.

'Why to-day, then?'

She did not answer.

'And