lt the unacknowledged estrangement
that had grown up between us very keenly. My husband opened the door
to go out, and came back to kiss me before he left me by myself. That
little after-thought of tenderness touched me. Acting on the impulse of
the moment, I put my arm round his neck, and held him to me gently.

"My darling," I said, "give me all your confidence. I know that you love
me. Show that you can trust me too."

He sighed bitterly, and drew back from me--in sorrow, not in anger.

"I thought we had agreed, Valeria, not to return to that subject again,"
he said. "You only distress yourself and distress me."

He left the room abruptly, as if he dare not trust himself to say more.
It is better not to dwell on what I felt after this last repulse. I
ordered the carriage at once. I was eager to find a refuge from my own
thoughts in movement and change.

I drove to the shops first, and made the purchases which I had mentioned
to Eustace by way of giving a reason for going out. Then I devoted
myself to the object which I really had at heart. I went to old
Benjamin's little villa, in the by-ways of St. John's Wood.

As soon as he had got over the first surprise of seeing me, he noticed
that I looked pale and care-worn. I confessed at once that I was in
trouble. We sat down together by the bright fireside in his little
library (Benjamin, as far as his means would allow, was a great
collector of books), and there I told my old friend, frankly and truly,
all that I have told here.

He was too distressed to say much. He fervently pressed my hand; he
fervently thanked God that my father had not lived to hear what he
had heard. Then, after a pause, he repeated my mother-in-law's name to
himself in a doubting, questioning tone. "Macallan?" he said. "Macallan?
Where have I heard that name? Why does it sound as if it wasn't strange
to me?"

He gave up pursuing the lost recollection, and asked, very earnestly,
what he could do for me. I answered that he could help me, in the first
place, to put an end to the doubt--an unendurable doubt to _me_--whether
I were lawfully married or not. His energy of the old days when he had
conducted my father's business showed itself again the moment I said
those words.

"Your carriage is at the door, my dear," he answered. "Come with me to
my own lawyer, without wasting another moment."

We drove to Lincoln's Inn Fields.

At my request Benjamin put my case to the lawyer as the case o