She seemed instinctively to feel a suspicion--an explanation of her amazing about-face--that was slowly gathering in my bewildered mind. She drew from the folds of her negligee a note and handed it to me. She said: “I haven’t confessed the worst I had done. Read that.” “Never mind,” said I. “I don’t wish to know.” “But I wish you to know,” insisted she. “There mustn’t be anything dark between us.” I reluctantly opened the note and read. It was from Prince Frascatoni--not the cold bid for a break that my suspicion expected but a passionate appeal to her not to break their engagement and throw him over. I could by no reach of the imagination picture that calm, weary-eyed man of the world writing those lines--which shows how ill men understand each other where women are concerned. “He sent me that note the day I came here,” said she. “I did not answer it.” Her tone was supreme indifference--the peculiar cruelty of woman toward man when she does not care. “You were engaged to him?” said I--because I could think of nothing else to say. “Yes,” said she. Then with the chaste pride of the “good” woman, “But not until after the decree was granted. He would have declared himself in New York, but I wouldn’t permit _that_. At least, Godfrey, I never forgot with other men that I was your wife--or let them forget it. You believe me?” “I’m sure of it,” said I. She gazed dreamily into vacancy. “To think,” she mused, “that I imagined I could marry him--_any_ man! How little a woman knows her own heart. I always loved you. Godfrey, I don’t believe there is any such thing as divorce--not for a good woman. When she gives herself”--in a dreamy, musical voice, with a tender pressure of my hand--“it is for time and for eternity.” Never in all my life had I so welcomed anyone as I welcomed the interrupting nurse. I felt during the whole interview that I was under a strain; until I was in the open air and alone I did not realize how terrific the strain. I walked--on and on, like a madman--vaulting gates and fences, scrambling over hedges, plowing through gardens, leaping brooks--on and on, hour after hour. What should I do? What _could_ I do? Nothing but wait until she was out of danger, wait and study away at this incredible, impossible freak of hers--try to fathom it, if it was not the vagary of a diseased mind. I wished to believe it that, but I could not. There was nothing of insanity in her manner, and from beginning to end her story was coherent and plausible. Plausible, but not believable; for I had no more vanity about her loving me than has the next man when he does not want the love offered him and finds it inconvenient to credit, and so is in the frame of mind to see calmly and clearly.