mplice of her shame. His face was level with hers, but his
eyes looked straight past her, untainted and clear.

"What if there was?" he said. "It makes no difference."

She turned her sad face to his.

"Don't you know, Robert? Don't you know?"

He frowned impatiently.

"No, I don't. I don't want to."

"You'd rather think I didn't care for you?"

His face set again in its tortured, dumb look.

"You shan't think that of me."

She leaned back again out of his sight, and he presented to her his
shoulder, thrust forward, and his profile, immovable, dogged, and
apparently unheeding.

"It's because I cared for you that I couldn't tell you the truth. I
tried and couldn't. It was so difficult, and you _wouldn't_ understand.
Then Wilfrid Marston said I must--I had to tell you."

He threw himself back and turned on her.

"What had Marston to do with it?"

Her voice and her eyes dropped.

"You see, he knew."

"I see."

He waited.

"I couldn't tell you."

His silence conveyed to her that he listened since she desired it, that
he left it to her to tell him as much or as little as she would, and
that thus he trusted her.

"I was afraid," she said.

"What? Afraid of _me_, Kitty?"

"I thought it would make you not care for me."

"I don't think anything you can tell me will make any difference."

"You said yourself it would. You said you wouldn't marry me if I wasn't
nice."

He looked up impatient and surprised.

"But we've been through all that," he said.

"No, we haven't. When I said I wasn't nice I meant there were things
I----"

"Well?"

"I--I wasn't married to Charley Tailleur."

He took it in silence; and through the silence she let it sink in.

"Where is the fellow?" he asked presently.

"He's dead. I told you _that_."

"I'd forgotten."

There was another silence.

"Did you care for him very much, Kitty?"

"I don't know. Yes. No, I don't know. It wasn't the same thing."

"Never mind. It's very good of you to tell me."

"I didn't mean to."

"What made you tell me?"

"Seeing the children. I thought I could go on deceiving you; but when I
saw them I knew I couldn't."

"I see." His voice softened. "You told me because of them. I'm glad you
told me." He paused on that.

"Well," he said, "we must make the best of it."

"That makes no difference?"

"No. Not now."

She sighed.

"How long ago was it?" he asked.

"Five years. Charley Tailleur was the first."

"What?"

"Th