Marianne may have known she looked white, and wished for darkness to hide it, for she blew both candles out, and returned to her seat with her back to the window. The cat sighed, as lamenting the selfishness of mortals, and resumed her old place, now again available, with a pretence of magnanimity. "I shall copy that letter on a clean sheet, and send it." The darkness seemed to give the speaker fortitude. "Go your own way, dear! I've done my best." Mrs. Eldridge claimed freedom from responsibility. "You know, I suppose, that I spoke to mamma about that Steptoe nonsense--the photograph?" "No, I didn't. What did she say?" "Said it was all sheer impossibility. Said Steptoe had been turning the cupboards over when we were away at Easter, and cooked it all up." "That won't do us any good. How did Steptoe know the name of the coal-merchant?" "Saw it on the back of the photo, mamma says." "And how did she know the name Verrall?" "Because it's Bob's second name. Besides, it's on a brass plate on Kate's old portmanteau in the trunk-room." "I can't say I think that accounts for anything." Mrs. Eldridge pointed out two or three weak points in Mrs. Craik's explanation, and condemned it as worthless. She was wrong. The explanation was a good one _per se_, but, like so many explanations, taxed human powers of belief more than the thing it explained. However, no one who has the faculty of selecting his creeds ever stickles about the trouble one will give him. He only thinks of the advantages it will bring with it. "Perhaps it doesn't explain. That's what mamma said, anyhow." Thus Marianne, as if it didn't matter much, either way. Then, more convincedly: "I don't believe Steptoe is lying, because I can't see what she has to gain by it. Besides, I pulled the photo out of the _passe-partout_, and it was gummed in, and the name on the back." "Did you say so to your mother?" "Yes, and she said I must have been mistaken, because, if not, the story would have been true." "I can't see"--Mrs. Eldridge is talking reflectively, introspectively--"I cannot see _why_ your husband did not tell you all about it! Suppose your sister _was_ married to this man first, I don't see that it was any such hanging matter. Unless...." "Unless what?" "Well!--nothing, dear. That is, perhaps I oughtn't to say...." "Charlotte!--that's you all over! You know you're wanting to say all the time. _Do speak out and have done with it!_" Marianne got up uneasily, and walked from place to place in the room. The cat went back to the sofa cushion, and resumed her task of getting a little sleep. Charlotte means to say, in time. Trust her! "You know, dear Marianne, that all this is the _merest_ speculation. We really know _nothing_! And ten to one, when you do speak of it to Titus, he'll be able to clear it all up. Besides, after all, it could only be the sort of thing that's always happening, and one says nothing about it as long as the parties get married afterwards...."