She gave a wan smile which seemed to Stransom stranger even than
the fact itself. "I never, never spoke of him."

He looked again about the room. "Why then, if your life had been
so full of him?"

"Mayn't I put you that question as well? Hadn't your life also
been full of him?"

"Any one's, every one's life who had the wonderful experience of
knowing him. _I_ never spoke of him," Stransom added in a moment,
"because he did me--years ago--an unforgettable wrong." She was
silent, and with the full effect of his presence all about them it
almost startled her guest to hear no protest escape her. She
accepted his words, he turned his eyes to her 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