moking-room. At last, at the
end of the long walk, just where the laurel-bushes mark the beginning
of the shrubberies--on the threshold of the scene of his crime--Pamela
turned round suddenly and faced the repentant sinner. The most
interesting things in life are those which, perhaps by the inevitable
nature of the case, one does not hear; and I did not hear the scene
which followed. For a while they stood talking--rather, he talked and
she listened. Then she turned again and walked slowly into the
shrubbery. Chillington followed. It was the end of a chapter, and I
laid down the book.

How and from whom Miss Liston heard the news, which Chillington himself
told me without a glimmer of shame or a touch of embarrassment some two
hours later, I do not know; but hear it she did before luncheon; for
she came down, ready armed with the neatest little speeches for both
the happy lovers. I did not expect Pamela to show an ounce more feeling
than the strictest canons of propriety demanded, and she fulfilled my
expectations to the letter; but I had hoped, I confess, that
Chillington would have displayed some little consciousness. He did not;
and it is my belief that, throughout the events which I have recorded,
he retained, and that he still retains, the conviction that Miss
Liston's interest in him was purely literary and artistic, and that she
devoted herself to his society simply because he offered an interesting
problem and an inspiring theme. An ingenious charity may find in that
attitude evidence of modesty; to my thinking it argues a more subtle
and magnificent conceit than if he had fathomed the truth, as many
humbler men in his place would have done.

On the day after the engagement was accomplished Miss Liston left us to
return to London. She came out in her hat and jacket and sat down by
me; the carriage was to be round in ten minutes. She put on her gloves
slowly and buttoned them carefully. This done, she said, "By the way,
Mr. Wynne, I've adopted your suggestion. The man doesn't find out."

"Then you've made him a fool?" I asked bluntly.

"No," she answered. "I--I think it might happen though he wasn't a
fool."

She sat with her hands in her lap for a moment or two, then she went on
in a lower voice, "I'm going to make him find out afterwards."

I felt her glance on me, but I looked straight in front of me.

"What! after he's married the shallow girl?"

"Yes," said Miss Liston.

"Rather too late, isn't it