Edgar was grieved to see her in such deadly trouble, for it was easy to see her pain beneath her still exterior, but he was confident, and if grieved not afraid. Leam's little life, so innocent and uneventful as it must have been, could hold no such tremendous evil, could have been smirched with no such damning stain, as that at which she seemed to hint. Grant even that there had been something more between her and Alick Corfield than he would quite like to hear--which was his first thought--still, that more must needs be very little, could but be very simple. His wife must be spotless--that he knew, and he would marry none whose past was not as unsullied as new-fallen snow, as unsullied as must be her future--absolute purity--the unruffled emotions of a maidenhood undisturbed until now even by dreams, even by visions. He owed it to himself and his position that his wife, man of many loves as he was, should be this; but at the worst the childish affection of brother and sister, which was all that could possibly have been between Leam and that awkward young gangrel Alick Corfield, could have nothing in it that he ought to take to heart or that should influence him. Yes, he might smile and not be afraid. And indeed her delicate conscience was another grace in his eyes. He loved her more than ever for the honesty that must confess all its little sins. Sweet Leam! Leam having to confess! Leam! she who was almost too modest for an ordinary lover's comfort, needing to be tamed out of her savage bashfulness, not to be reproved for transgressing the proper reticence of an English maid. It was a pretty play, but it was only a play. "Come and sit by me and make full confession, my darling," he said lovingly. "I will stand where I am. You sit," said Leam, without looking at him. He seated himself on the sofa. "And now what has my little culprit to say for herself?" he asked pleasantly, putting on a playful magisterial air. "It is over," said Leam, her hands pressed in each other with so tight a clasp that the strained knuckles were white and started. "You must not love me: I cannot be your wife." "Why?" He showed his square white teeth beneath the golden sweep of his moustache, his moist red lips parted, always smiling. "I have done a great crime," said Leam in a low, monotonous voice. "A crime! That is a large word for a small peccadillo--larger than any sin of yours merits, my sweetheart." "You do not know," said Leam with a despairing gesture. "How can you know when you have not heard?" "Well, what may be its name?" he asked, willing to humor her. She paused for a moment: then with a visible effort, drawing in her breath, she said, in a voice that was unnaturally calm and low, "I killed madame." "Leam!" cried Edgar, "how can you talk such nonsense? The thing is growing beyond a joke. Unsay your words; they are a wrong done to _me_."