eclare that, during a whole fortnight, I watched her incessantly; I
scrutinized every look, every gesture; I criticised every word, and in
neither one nor the other did I find the least shadow of blame. She
seemed to me pure in heart, thought and word. At times, when she read or
sang to us, there was a light such as one fancies the angels wear. Then
I found also what Lance said of her charity to the poor was perfectly
true--they worshipped her. No saint was a greater saint to them than the
woman whom I believed I had seen drown a little child.

It seemed as though she could hardly do enough for them; the minute she
heard that any one was sick or sorry she went to their aid. I have known
this beautiful woman, whose husband adored her, give up a ball or a
party to sit with some poor woman whose child was ill, or was ill
herself. And I must speak, too, of her devotion--to see the earnest,
tender piety on her beautiful face was marvelous.

"Look, John," Lance would whisper to me; "my wife looks like an angel."

I was obliged to own that she did. But what was the soul like that
animated the beautiful body?

When we were talking--and we spent many hours together in the garden--I
was struck with the beauty and nobility of her ideas. She took the right
side of everything; her wisdom was full of tenderness; she never once
gave utterance to a thought or sentence but that I was both pleased and
struck with it. But for this haunting suspicion I should have pronounced
her a perfect woman, for I could see no fault in her. I had been a
fortnight at Dutton Manor, and but for this it would have been a very
happy fortnight. Lance and I had fallen into old loving terms of
intimacy, and Frances made a most lovable and harmonious third. A whole
fortnight I had studied her, criticised her, and was more bewildered
than ever--more sure of two things: The first was that it was next to
impossible that she had ever been anything different to what she was
now; the second, that she must be the woman I had seen on the pier.
What, under those circumstances, was any man to do?

No single incident had happened to interrupt the tranquil course of
life, but from day to day I grew more wretched with the weight of my
miserable secret.

One afternoon, I remember that the lilacs were all in bloom, and Lance
sat with his beautiful wife where a great group of trees stood. When I
reached them they were speaking of the sea.

"I always long for the sea in