"I will speak the truth!" Sarah arose and stood before him--face livid and eyes burning. "I did love this man! I married you, partly to please my parents, partly because I found out that by some means my secret had fallen into unscrupulous hands, and I was mad with dread of its exposure! It seemed to me that no worse shame could come upon me than to have it trumpeted abroad that I had bestowed my love unsought, and was ready to die because it was slighted. I have learned since that it is far, far worse to live a lie--to despise myself! Oh! that I had died then!" She battled with the emotion that threatened to overwhelm her and went on. "Once bound to you, it has been my hourly endeavor to feel and act as became the faithful wife of a kind, noble man. If, sometimes, I have erred in thought--if my feelings have failed me in the moment of trial--yet, in word and deed, in look and gesture, I have been true to you. No one have I deceived more thoroughly than Philip Benson. He never suspected my unfortunate partiality for himself; he believes me still, what I would give worlds to become in truth, your loyal, loving wife! It is well that you know the truth at last. I do not ask you how you have obtained the outlines of a disgraceful story, that I have tried a thousand times to tell you, but was prevented by the fear of losing your favour forever. This is my poor defence--not against your charges, but in palliation of the sin of which they justly accuse me. I can say nothing more. Do with me as you will!" "It is but just to myself that you should hear the circumstances which accidentally revealed this matter to me." He narrated the scene at the restaurant, and the discovery of the evening. He evinced neither relenting nor sympathy in the recital. Her confession had extinguished the last ray of hope, cherished, though unacknowledged by himself, that she might extenuate her error or give a more favorable construction to the evidence against her. It was not singular that, in the reaction of disappointment, he was ready to believe that he had not heard all; to imagine that he could perceive throughout her statement a disposition to screen Philip, that was, in itself, a proof of disingenuousness, if not deliberate falsehood. She denied that he had ever been aware of her attachment or had reciprocated it. What meant then those words--"hopes in time to have a nearer claim?" What those impassioned verses? What the linking of their initials within the shell? the motto on the wooden tablet? While these subtle queries were insinuated into his soul by some mocking spirit, he concluded the history of the discovery of the casket. "I have never opened it since the night before I was married," said Sarah, with no haste of self-justification. "I put it into the drawer the day after we went to our house. It has not been unlocked from that day to this." "Why keep it at all, unless as a memento of one still dear to you?"