d on it
instantly.

There were signs of acute anxiety on Miss Harden's face. It was as if
she implored him to say something consoling about Jewdwine, something
that would make him pure in her troubled sight. A light dawned on him.

"Did you write to him?" she asked.

He saw what she wanted him to say, and he said it. "Yes, I wrote. But
I suppose I did it too late, like everything else I've done."

He had told the truth, but not the whole truth, which would have been
damaging to Jewdwine. To deny altogether that he had written would
have been a clumsy and unnecessary falsehood, easily detected.
Something more masterly was required of him, and he achieved it
without an instant's hesitation, and with his eyes open to the
consequences. He knew that he was deliberately suppressing the one
detail that proved his own innocence. But as their eyes met he saw
that she knew it, too; that she divined him through the web that
wrapped him round.

"Well," she said, "if you wrote to Mr. Jewdwine, you did indeed do
your best."

The answer, on her part, was no less masterly in its way. He could not
help admiring its significant ambiguity. It was both an act of
justice, an assurance of her belief in him, and a superb intimation of
her trust in Horace Jewdwine. And it was not only superb, it was
almost humble in that which it further confessed and implied--her
gratitude to him for having made that act of justice consistent with
loyalty to her cousin. How clever of her to pack so many meanings
into one little phrase!

"I did it too late," he said, emphasizing the point which served for
Jewdwine's vindication.

"Never mind that. You did it."

"Miss Harden, is it possible that you still believe in me?" The
question was wrung from him; for her belief in him remained
incredible.

"Why should it not be possible?"

"Any man of business would tell you that appearances are against me."

"Well, I don't believe in appearances; and I do believe in you. You
are not a man of business, you see."

"Thank goodness, I'm not, now."

"You never were, I think."

"No. And yet, I'm so horribly mixed up with this business, that I can
never think of myself as an honest man again."

She seemed to be considering whether this outburst was genuine or only
part of his sublime pretence.

"And I could never think of you as anything else. I should say, from
all I have seen of you, that you are if anything _too_ honest, too
painfully sincere."

(