"I did not expect to meet you here," he said in a voice grave with a sense of the worry from which he was suffering and from which wrong he could not, no matter how he reasoned, disassociate the name of his sister. "I have tried to find you--to meet you--to--in short, to demand an explanation of this affair; but until now I have been unsuccessful." She spoke hesitatingly and with a slight tremor in her voice, otherwise there was no indication of the great emotion that she was laboring under. In short, her demeanor, while firm and of simple dignity, was of the gravest character imaginable. "You have broken all ties between us," he answered slowly. "John, John! Don't turn away! Stop!" and she held up a warning finger as, stepping in front of him, she barred his way. "You shall hear me. For I believe what I have to tell you is of the utmost importance. But first, what cause have you for divorcing Constance?" "You ask that question?" he slowly emphasized. "Yes, I ask that question," as steadily and definitely she regarded him. "If on my return from China you had not concealed from me her infatuation for that man--that fellow Corway--this unhappy trouble would have been over long ago." "I have concealed nothing from you! John, I am sure it is all a mistake." "All a mistake?" he angrily repeated. "You concealed nothing from me! When her notoriety was of such common gossip that strangers were familiar with details!" "If you had not degraded Constance by so meanly believing the palpable artifice of a--a stranger," quietly and gravely replied Virginia--"if you had but given her an opportunity to defend herself, you would have found no cause for divorce; no cause even to fear the tainted breath of scandal could ever attach to Constance. Oh, John, it is all wrong! Constance is innocent! She has never been untrue to you!" Excitedly he turned to her, his face ablaze with the fervor of his amazement, as he repeated: "Innocent--Constance! Constance innocent!" "Yes," promptly responded Virginia. "I who know it, swear it is true--swear it is the truth in the sight of that high throne before which we shall all stand in the Judgment Day. "It was I who originated the dreadful insinuations against Mr. Corway." "Yes, yes! That may be true--but--" and Thorpe's manner again relapsed to a heart-aching resignation, as he sadly added: "He wore my wife's ring!" "Yes, that is true, John, but unknown to her and most assuredly without her consent," eagerly asserted Virginia, and she related the manner Corway obtained the ring, and how she subsequently had indiscreetly informed Beauchamp it was "your gift to Constance." Those of poor wayward humanity who, in moments of great passion have done a great wrong, know what torture is silently endured as day and night, in moments awake and in dreams asleep, the crime haunts them, and knocks, knocks, knocks, without ceasing, upon the soul's door for release of the secret.