She was puzzled and confused. When she had put this and that together, guided by her intuition, the conclusion that he knew the guilty one had brought a huge relief. Now this fell into disarray. She felt beneath his manner a kind of appeal, a deprecation, almost a hidden pity for her--as though the danger were hers, not his, and she the one caught in this catastrophe. She looked at him pale and distraught. "You speak as if you were sorry for me," she said, "and not for yourself. Is it because you know you are not in real danger--that you know the truth must come out, only you can't tell it yourself, or tell me either? Is that it?" A wave of feeling passed over Harry, of hopeless longing. Whichever way the issue turned there was anguish for her--for she loved him. If he were acquitted, she must learn that past love between them had been illicit, that present love was shame, and future love an impossibility. Convicted, there must be added to this the bitter knowledge that her husband in very truth was a murderer, doomed to lurk in hiding so long as he might live. Yet not to reassure her now was cruelty. "It is not that, Jessica," he said gravely; "yet you must not fear for me--for my life. Try to believe me when I say that some time you will understand and know that I did only what I must." "Will that be soon?" she asked. "I think it may be soon," he answered. Her face lighted. The puzzle and dread lifted. "Oh, then," she said--"oh, then, I shall not be afraid. I can not share your thoughts, nor your secret, and I must rebel at that. You mustn't blame me--I wouldn't be a woman if I did not--but I love you more than all the world, and I shall believe that you know best. Hugh," she added softly, "do you know that--you haven't kissed me?" Before her upturned, pleading eyes and trembling lips, the iron of his purpose bent to the man in him, and he took her into his arms. CHAPTER XXXVII THE PENITENT THIEF A frosty gloom was over the city of Aniston, moon and stars hidden by a cloudy sky, from which a light snow--the first of the season--was sifting down. The streets were asleep; only occasional belated pedestrians were to be seen in the chilly air. These saw a man, his face muffled from the snowflakes, pass hurriedly toward the fountained square, from whose steeple two o'clock was just striking. The wayfarer skirted the square, keeping in cover of the buildings as though avoiding chance observation, till he stood on the pavement of a Gothic chapel fronting the open space. Here he paused and glanced furtively about him. He could see the entrance to the minister's study, at which he had so often knocked and the great rose-window of the audience-room where he had once gamed with Harry Sanderson. This was the building he must enter like a thief.