How calmly they spoke of Linda’s qualities--this Darby and Joan of nearly six years’ standing, to whom romance, in its earliest, sweetest bloom, would seem to have returned! From what a different standpoint Dinah could review the sentimental dilemmas of Gaston’s youth! How the renewal of their love had bettered them, man and woman alike! ‘Sometimes when I look back upon our Guernsey days, the days, I mean, which followed on that Langrune picnic, I feel a great remorse. Things ended happily ... because you would not let my jealous temper ruin both our lives.’ Possibly, thought Gaston Arbuthnot, because of Geff. He remembered their talk when the summer eve was sinking into darkness, the eve upon whose morrow Dinah would fain have quitted him for ever. ‘But I deserved the heaviest punishment that could have fallen upon me. Jealousy, such as mine was then, means selfishness, not love.’ ‘Spoken from a fine moral height! All the same, Dinah, I think you did love me, slightly.’ ‘I was unjust to Linda Thorne about your wager. When I opened the packet she left for you I was dishonourable. The whole thing may have been a jest--may have belonged to a time before you knew me at all. I recollect telling you I would keep that packet always. Well, Gaston--I wish now I had never seen it. There is a drawer in my dressing-case I have not once since had courage to open.’ Gaston Arbuthnot turned his head. Studying his wife’s face closely, some suspicion of possible mistake began to dawn upon him. ‘Are you certain as to your facts, Dinah? A drawer, you say, in your dressing-case which you never have found courage to open? And why not? I confess to being out of my depth. Linda’s gloves, honestly lost by her, honestly paid, lay on the parlour mantelshelf. Of this I am positive. From the mantelshelf I naturally transferred them to my pocket.’ ‘Gloves!’ ‘What else? You do not suppose poor Linda and I made bets of twenty pound notes?’ ‘But the word she wrote for you--the flower, the ribbon.... Ah, Gaston,’ cried Dinah, hurriedly, ‘let us never have another misunderstanding. I was wrong--criminal, if you choose--in opening a cover that was not directed to myself. But I suffered for my wrong-doing--you should know that--and you may be frank with me now. I am not so weak that you need hide a syllable of the truth.’ ‘I put the gloves in my pocket,’ Gaston Arbuthnot reasserted, ‘and to the best of my remembrance wore them out in about a fortnight. They were iron-gray. A pair of iron-gray gloves would last one ten days or a fortnight, would they not?’ On this Dinah Arbuthnot started to her feet. She remembered Gaston’s talent, of old, for calm mystification, and her heart fired. ‘I have not re-opened the subject for amusement, Gaston. To show you that I would make amends in earnest, I will fetch the packet this moment. I shall feel easier when it is in your keeping, to destroy or keep, as you choose.’