She rose uneasily. Her visitor rose, too, and together they watched the man's unconscious figure approaching. An electric lamp above the gate threw long shadows, like spokes of a wheel, across the grass. Mr. Thorne's face was invisible till he had reached the steps. "Henry," said his wife, "you do not see we have a visitor." He took off his hat, and perceiving a young lady, waved her a gallant and playful greeting, assuming her to be a neighbor. Miss Benedet stepped back without speaking. "God bless me!" said Thorne simply, when his wife had named their guest, and so left the matter, for Miss Benedet to acknowledge or deny their earlier meeting. Mrs. Thorne gave her little coughing laugh. "Well, you two!" she said with ghastly gayety. "Must I repeat, Henry, that this is"-- "He is trying to think where he has seen me before," said Helen Benedet. There was a ring in her voice like that of the stamp-heads on the bare steel. "I am wondering if you remember where you saw me before," Thorne retorted. He did not like the young lady's presence there. He thought it extraordinary and rather brazen. And he liked still less to be drawn into a woman's parlance. Mrs. Thorne sat still, trembling. "Henry, tell her! Speak to her!" Miss Benedet turned from husband to wife. Her face was very pale. "Ah," she said, "you knew about me all the time! He has told you everything--and you called me 'my dear'! Is it easy for you to say such things?" "Never mind, never mind! What did you wish to say to me? What was it?" "Give me a moment, please! This alters everything. I must get accustomed to this before we go any further." She reached out her white arm with the thin sleeve wrinkled over it, and helped herself again to water. In every gesture there was the poise and distinction of perfect self-command, a highly wrought self-consciousness, as far removed from pose as from Nature's simplicity. Natural she could never be again. No woman is natural who has a secret experience to guard, whether of grief or shame, her own or of any belonging to her. "You are the very man," she said, "the one who would not promise. And you kept your word and told your wife. And how long have you known of--of this engagement?" Mr. Thorne looked at his wife. "Only a few days," she said. "Still, there has been time," the girl reflected. She let her voice fall from its high society pitch. "I did not dream there was so much mercy in the world--among parents! You both knew, and you have not told him. You deserve to have Willy for your son!" Mrs. Thorne leaned forward to speak. Her husband, guessing what trouble her conscience would be making her, forestalled the effort with a warning look. "There was no mercy in the case," he bluntly said; "we do not know your story."