"Well," I answered gaily, "you're not going to accuse him of not
being a good husband, or of not being a good guardian to your
ward?"

She spoke then, slowly, like a person who is listening to the sounds
in a sea-shell held to her ear--and, would you believe it?--she told
me afterwards that, at that speech of mine, for the first time she
had a vague inkling of the tragedy that was to follow so
soon--although the girl had lived with them for eight years or so:

"Oh, I'm not thinking of saying that he is not the best of husbands,
or that he is not very fond of the girl."

And then I said something like:

"Well, Leonora, a man sees more of these things than even a wife.
And, let me tell you, that in all the years I've known Edward he
has never, in your absence, paid a moment's attention to any other
woman--not by the quivering of an eyelash. I should have noticed.
And he talks of you as if you were one of the angels of God."

"Oh," she came up to the scratch, as you could be sure Leonora
would always come up to the scratch, "I am perfectly sure that he
always speaks nicely of me."

I daresay she had practice in that sort of scene--people must have
been always complimenting her on her husband's fidelity and
adoration. For half the world--the whole of the world that knew
Edward and Leonora believed that his conviction in the Kilsyte