secret now," replied Juliet. "I mean the girl whom
Reuben is going to marry. What is the matter, Dr. Jervis?" she added, in
a tone of surprise.

We were passing through the gate that leads from the Embankment to
Middle Temple Lane, and I had stopped dead under the archway, laying a
detaining hand upon her arm and gazing at her in utter amazement.

"The girl that Reuben is going to marry!" I repeated. "Why, I had always
taken it for granted that he was going to marry you."

"But I told you, most explicitly, that was not so!" she exclaimed with
some impatience.

"I know you did," I admitted ruefully; "but I thought--well, I imagined
that things had, perhaps, not gone quite smoothly and--"

"Did you suppose that if I had cared for a man, and that man had been
under a cloud, I should have denied the relation or pretended that we
were merely friends?" she demanded indignantly.

"I am sure you wouldn't," I replied hastily. "I was a fool, an idiot--by
Jove, what an idiot I have been!"

"It was certainly very silly of you," she admitted; but there was a
gentleness in her tone that took away all bitterness from the reproach.

"The reason of the secrecy was this," she continued; "they became
engaged the very night before Reuben was arrested, and, when he heard of
the charge against him, he insisted that no one should be told unless,
and until, he was fully acquitted. I was the only person who was in
their confidence, and as I was sworn to secrecy, of course I couldn't
tell you; nor did I suppose that the matter would interest you. Why
should it?"

"Imbecile that I am," I murmured. "If I had only known!"

"Well, if you _had_ known," said she; "what difference could it have
made to you?"

This question she asked without looking at me, but I noted that her
cheek had grown a shade paler.

"Only this," I answered. "That I should have been spared many a day and
night of needless self-reproach and misery."

"But why?" she asked, still keeping her face averted. "What had you to
reproach yourself with?"

"A great deal," I answered, "if you consider my supposed position. If
you think of me as the trusted agent of a man, helpless and deeply
wronged--a man whose undeserved misfortunes made every demand upon
chivalry and generosity; if you think of me as being called upon to
protect and carry comfort to the woman whom I regarded as, virtually,
that man's betrothed wife; and then if you think of me as proceeding
straightway,