s hat on his ear, came to us from a distance.
This did not prevent the scene from being very comme il faut, as Miss
Bordereau had called it the first time I saw her. Presently a gondola
passed along the canal with its slow rhythmical plash, and as we
listened we watched it in silence. It did not stop, it did not carry the
doctor; and after it had gone on I said to Miss Tita:

"And where are they now--the things that were in the trunk?"

"In the trunk?"

"That green box you pointed out to me in her room. You said her papers
had been there; you seemed to imply that she had transferred them."

"Oh, yes; they are not in the trunk," said Miss Tita.

"May I ask if you have looked?"

"Yes, I have looked--for you."

"How for me, dear Miss Tita? Do you mean you would have given them to me
if you had found them?" I asked, almost trembling.

She delayed to reply and I waited. Suddenly she broke out, "I don't know
what I would do--what I wouldn't!"

"Would you look again--somewhere else?"

She had spoken with a strange unexpected emotion, and she went on in the
same tone: "I can't--I can't--while she lies there. It isn't decent."

"No, it isn't decent," I replied gravely. "Let the poor lady rest in
peace." And the words, on my lips, were not hypocritical, for I felt
reprimanded and shamed.

Miss Tita added in a moment, as if she had guessed this and were sorry
for me, but at the same time wished to explain that I did drive her on
or at least did insist too much: "I can't deceive her that way. I can't
deceive her--perhaps on her deathbed."

"Heaven forbid I should ask you, though I have been guilty myself!"

"You have been guilty?"

"I have sailed under false colors." I felt now as if I must tell her
that I had given her an invented name, on account of my fear that her
aunt would have heard of me and would refuse to take me in. I explained
this and also that I had really been a party to the letter written to
them by John Cumnor months before.

She listened with great attention, looking at me with parted lips, and
when I had made my confession she said, "Then your real name--what is
it?" She repeated it over twice when I had told her, accompanying it
with the exclamation "Gracious, gracious!" Then she added, "I like your
own best."

"So do I," I said, laughing. "Ouf! it's a relief to get rid of the
other."

"So it was a regular plot--a kind of conspiracy?"

"Oh, a conspiracy--we were only two," I replied, leav