again to see in what manner she accepted them.
It was with rising tears and a rare sweetness in
the movement of putting out her hand to take his
own. Nothing more wonderful had ever appeared
to him than, in that little chamber of remembrance
and homage, to see her convey with such exquisite
mildness that as from Acton Hague any injury
was credible. The clock ticked in the stillness --
Hague had probably given it to her--and while
he let her hold his hand with a tenderness that
was almost an assumption of responsibility for his
old pain as well as his new, Stransom after a minute
broke out: "Good God, how he must have used
you!"

She dropped his hand at this, got up and, moving
across the room, made straight a small picture to
which, on examining it, he had given a slight push.
Then turning round on him with her pale gaiety
recovered, "I've forgiven him!" she declared.
"I know what you've done," said Stransom;
"I know what you've done for years." For a
moment they looked at each other through it all
with their long community of service in their eyes.
This short passage made, to his sense, for the
woman before him, an immense, an absolutely
naked confession; which was presently, suddenly
blushing red and changing her place again, what
she appeared to learn he perceived in it. He got

-46-