True, she had been quick to exonerate him in her thoughts as soon as the suspicion was engendered in them, but she had done so almost reluctantly, ungenerously, not because she wanted to believe him innocent, but because the burden of the evidence, together with the counsel of instinct, had been too strong in his favour to permit more than a moment's doubt. And she had repented; but that, it appeared, was not enough; she must be punished in this unique way, have her own unworthiness demonstrated by this artless manifestation of his worth. And however much she might long to make amends to him, she couldn't. The pain and the pity of it! He was a far better man than she a woman, and he honoured her with his love--and she couldn't requite him, she couldn't love him; he was still too far from the mirage of her ideal. "Oh!" she sighed. "Why?" He misconstrued. "I've told you heaps of times--because you're a woman, not a manikin. Marriage would mean something more to you than clothes, Europe, idleness, and flirting with other women's husbands, just as it would have to mean more to me than hiring a woman to live with me and entertain my friends." "How do you know? How can you tell? What do you know about me?" she protested almost passionately, and answered herself. "You don't know; you can't tell; you know nothing about me. You assert things--I only wish they were true--" "Oh, they're true enough," he interrupted unceremoniously. "It's no use trying to run yourself down to me. I couldn't feel the way I do about you if you were not at heart as sound as an apple, no matter what nonsense you may have been guilty of at one time or another, as every human being's got to be." "Has nobody told you anything about me? Mrs. Gosnold--?" "Mrs. Gosnold 'tends to her own knitting. And nobody has told me anything--except yourself. More than that, I don't go by other folks' opinions when I make up my mind about a matter as vital to me as marrying a wife." "Then I must tell you--" "Not until you give me some legitimate title to your confidence. You've got no right to confide in me unless you mean to marry me--and you haven't said you would yet." "I can't--I couldn't without telling you--please let me speak!" She drew a long breath of desperation and grasped the nettle firmly. "I stole the clothes I came here in. My name isn't Manwaring--it's Sally Manvers. I was a shop-girl--" "Half a minute. Mrs. Gosnold knows all this, doesn't she?" "Yes--" "You told her everything, and still she stood for you?" "Yes, but--" "That's enough for me. I don't want to hear anything more until you're my wife. After that you'll have to tell me--and if there's any trouble remaining to be straightened out then, why, it'll be my natural job as a husband to fix it up for you. Till then I won't listen to any more of your confidences that have nothing whatever to do with the fact that I love you and believe in you and want to make you happy."