“Why, Adele,” the other protested, faltering a little under her look, “you yourself repudiated, in the most eloquent and unanswerable words, the bare suggestion that I could possibly be animated by the desire to cloak any unworthy deed or incident from your observation.” “That was for _his_ benefit,” she replied, tranquilly. “I was determined that he should know what we thought of _his_ code of morals. But that does not at all affect the question of what you have been doing. Do I understand that you are going to insist on refusing to tell me where you have been, whom you have seen, what your so-called secret is about?” “Adele!” he urged, “I really must preserve a reticence as to the essential details of the matter in question--perhaps only for a few days--at least until the obligation of secrecy is removed. You would not have me recreant to my plighted faith, would you?” “But what business had you going and making her any such promise?” “Her!” Mr. Skinner said, feebly smiling; “you jest, my dear Adele. How can you conceivably imagine it was a ‘her’?” “I don’t imagine; I know,” responded the daughter, with a hard, dry smile. “You have been seeing that yellow-haired girl that Lord Drumpipes had with him at the Museum yesterday. The letter which summoned you forth this morning was from her. You made some paltering excuses to me, and went out to meet her--and you won’t look me in the eye and deny it.” In truth he did not take up her challenge. He hung his head, looked away, and shuffled with his feet. “All I am at liberty to say,” he remarked at last, with visible emotion, “is that my grief at being compelled to rest temporarily under the unwelcome shadow of your suspicion is, to some slight extent, mitigated by the consciousness that when you know all you will do ample justice to the probity of my motives and the honourable character of my actions. I might even go further, and express the conviction that the outcome will be of a nature to afford you unalloyed personal satisfaction.” “That may all be,” returned Adele; “but, in the meantime, you don’t go out in London any more by yourself!” *****