They both, though they did not allude to it, dreaded intensely the first visit to Miss Veronica. By tacit agreement they did not pay it together, by tacit agreement too, they decided that the secret of their fatal “mistake,” should, if possible, be concealed from the affectionate and unselfish friend, who, to some extent, was responsible for their having committed it. But they reckoned without their host! Veronica’s perceptions, naturally acute, and rendered still more so by her reflective life and in her present case by her loving anxiety, were not so easily to be deceived. Though no word of misgiving escaped her, she yet saw too clearly that Geoffrey’s gaiety was forced—that Marion’s expressions of content and satisfaction wore not genuine—that neither of the two confided in her as of old. She was the last person in the world to take offence or be hurt by their silence. That its motive was to spare her pain she divined by instinct. Still on the whole, I think it was a mistake. Poor Veronica suffered, I believe, more acutely from the mystery surrounding her friends’ evident alienation from each other, than would have been the case had they taken her into their confidence and related to her the whole of the strange and exceptional history. On their side both Geoffrey and Marion paid no light price for the reserve they thought it their duty to maintain. For the first time since childhood Geoffrey felt himself forced to shun the society of the friend to whom he had carried every grief and perplexity, every interest, every joy of his life. And to Marion likewise, it was no small trial to be deprived at this critical time, of the wisest woman friend she had ever known; of the gentle sympathy which during the many dreary months of her Mallingford life, had never failed her.