that signal from the theatre-box to her accomplice?

She admitted having grossly deceived me, and that she was unworthy.
What did she mean? In what manner had she deceived me?

Had she a secret lover?

That idea struck me suddenly, and staggered me. In some of her recent
actions I read secrecy and suspicion. On several occasions lately she
had been out shopping alone, and one afternoon, about a week before,
she had not returned to dress for dinner until nearly eight o'clock.
Her excuse had been a thin one, but, unsuspicious, I had passed it by.

Had I really been a fool to marry her, after all? I knew Marlowe's
opinion of our marriage, though he had never expressed it. That she
had been associated with a shady lot had all along been apparent. The
terrors of that silent house in Porchester Terrace remained only too
fresh within my memory.

That night I spent in a wild fever of excitement. No sleep came to my
eyes, and I think Browning--to whom I said nothing--believed that I
had taken leave of my senses. The faithful old servant did not retire,
for at five in the morning I found him seated dozing in a chair
outside in the hall, tired out by the watchful vigil he had kept over
me.

I tried in vain to decide what to do. I wanted to find Sylvia, to
induce her to reveal the truth to me, and to allay her fear of my
reproaches.

I loved her; aye, no man in all the world ever loved a woman better.
Yet she had, of her own accord, because of her own shame at her
deception, bade farewell, and slipped away into the great ocean of
London life.

Morning dawned at last, cold, grey and foggy, one of those dispiriting
mornings of late autumn which the Londoner knows so well. Still I knew
not how to act. I wanted to discover her, to bring her back, and to
demand of her finally the actual truth. All the mystery of those past
months had sent my brain awhirl.

I had an impulse to go to the police and reveal the secret of that
closed house in Porchester Terrace. Yet had she not implored me not to
do so? Why? There was only one reason. She feared exposure herself.

No. Ten thousand times no. I would not believe ill of her. Can any man
who really loves a woman believe ill of her? Love is blind, it is
true, and the scales never fall from the eyes while true affection
lasts. And so I put suspicion from my mind, and swallowed the cup of
coffee Browning put before me.

The old man, the friend of my youth, knew that his mistress had