“Why do you speak of this?” he asked, in low, uncertain tones. “Let it suffice that I have long known all; and pray do not recur again to a topic so fraught with misery to both of us.” “You speak in riddles!” she retorted, her excitement and determination to be enlightened increasing with his evident reluctance to satisfy her. “You speak in riddles! I have never had anything to conceal, as you would seem to imply. Tell me your meaning frankly; for that man has aroused within me doubts and fears which nothing but your explanation can allay.” He rose, and, coming toward her, would have taken her in his arms. She stepped back and prevented this; but, without noticing the repulse, he said affectionately: “My Florence, if in the first paroxysm of my natural grief and distress I permitted myself to think harshly of you, a more intimate knowledge of my darling’s character has made me repent this. I am satisfied that you were deceived--misled--that you never really knew what you were doing. And now let us say no more, for I lose all self-command when I think of your wrongs.” Again Florence put back the hands that were extended to clasp her. “Not yet. I must and will know what all this means! Tell me, Frank, I conjure you, what you have heard from this man!” “Do you still persist? Why should you, when you see how painful it is to me? Have you never imagined that that fellow was deep in all his master’s secrets?” Florence stamped her foot in an agony of impatience. “I never thought about it. What was it to me? Why torture me with this hesitation? What was the whispered word that filled you with such strange thoughts of me?” With evident reluctance and unwillingness, Mr. Aylwinne at last replied: “He told me the nature of your errand at the Albany.” “Well? Was there aught in it for which you could condemn me?” “Certainly not, if”--then there was another tormenting pause--“if you still believed yourself a wife.” Florence recoiled in dismay. “I a wife! Whose? Lieutenant Mason’s? Nay, he dared not tell you this!” Mr. Aylwinne smiled bitterly. “Do you think that such a man would hesitate to prove false to any trust, or that compassion for deceived innocence is to be found in one so crafty and designing?” “There was none reposed in him,” she answered. “It is you--you who have been deceived. I never spoke to Lieutenant Mason nor saw him after we quitted the priory.” Mr. Aylwinne now looked utterly bewildered. He longed to believe her, yet what she told him was so completely at variance with all he had hitherto fancied to be true, that his mind was thoroughly confused. In agitation far greater than her own, he exclaimed: “For Heaven’s sake, Florence, do not palter with me! If a natural womanly shame at the unmerited disgrace that fell upon you has hitherto sealed your lips, to me you may surely speak openly! Or if I ask what gives you pain, bid me be silent, and I will faithfully obey.”