'I hoped you didn't think me a very bad sort of fellow,' he said. And then, as she made no answer, he plunged at once into his declaration. He was a cold lover on the stage, but practice had at least given him fluency, and now he was very much in earnest--he had never known till then all that she was to him: there was real passion in his voice, and a restrained power which might have moved her once. But Mabel heard him to the end only because she felt unable to stop him without losing control over herself. She felt the influence of his will, but it made her the more thankful that she had so powerful a safeguard against it. He finished and she still made no response, and he began to feel decidedly awkward; but when at last she turned her face to him, although her eyes were bright, it was not with the passion he had hoped to read there. 'And it really was that, after all!' she said bitterly. 'Do you know, I expected something very different.' 'I said what I feel. I might have said it better perhaps,' he retorted, 'but at least tell me what you expected me to say, and I will say that.' 'Yes, I will tell you. I expected an explanation.' 'An explanation!' he repeated blankly; 'of what?' 'Is there nothing you can remember which might call for some excuse if you found I had heard of it? I will give you every chance, Harold. Think--is there nothing?' Caffyn had forgotten the stamp episode as soon as possible, as a disagreeable expedient to which he had been obliged to resort, and which had served its end, and so he honestly misunderstood this question. 'Upon my soul, no,' he said earnestly. 'I don't pretend to have been any better than my neighbours, but since I began to think of you, I never cared about any other woman. If you've been told any silly gossip----' Mabel laughed, but not merrily. 'Oh, it is not _that_--really it did not occur to me to be jealous at any time--especially now. Harold, Dolly has told me everything about that letter,' she added, as he still looked doubtful. He understood now at all events, and took a step back as if to avoid a blow. _Everything!_ his brain seemed dulled for an instant by those words; he thought that he had said enough to prevent the child from breathing a syllable about that unlucky letter, and now Mabel knew 'everything!' But he recovered his power of thought almost directly, feeling that this was no time to lose his head. 'I suppose I'm expected to show some emotion,' he said lightly; 'it's evidently something quite too terrible. But I'm afraid _I_ want an explanation this time.' 'I think not, but you shall have it. I know that you came in and found that poor child tearing off the stamp from some old envelope of mine, and had the wickedness to tell her she had been stealing. Do you deny it?'