"Then I suppose I must speak more plainly," I said. "It is a pity, Sybil, that you did not tell me the truth from your own lips." She went pale as her eyes met mine in quick anxiety. "The truth--about what?" "About your love for Arthur Rumbold," I said very gravely, my gaze still fixed steadily upon hers. In an instant her gloved hands clenched themselves, her lips twitched nervously, and she placed her hand upon her heart as though to stop its wild beating. "My love?" she gasped blankly--"my love for Arthur Rumbold?" "Yes, your love for him." "Ah! Surely you are cruel, Wilfrid, to speak of him--after--after all that has lately happened," she burst forth in a choking voice. "You cannot know the true facts--you cannot dream the truth, or that man's name would never pass your lips." "No," I said gravely. "I do not know the truth. I am in utter ignorance. I only know that you met Mrs Rumbold at Fort William and travelled back with her to Dumfries." "That is quite true," she answered. "I have no wish to conceal it." "But your love for her son--you have concealed that!" "A woman who loves truly does not always proclaim it to the world," was the reply. "Then if you love him why are you in hiding? Why are you masquerading as my wife?" I demanded seriously. I was, I admit, piqued by her attitude, which I perhaps misjudged as defiant. She shrugged her shoulders slightly, but met my gaze unflinchingly. "You promised me your assistance," she sighed. "If you now regret your promise I willingly release you from it." "I have no wish to be released," I answered. "I only desire to know the truth. By a fortunate circumstance, Sybil, I have discovered your secret love for Arthur Rumbold--and yet at Ryhall you said you had decided to marry Ellice Winsloe." "A woman does not always marry the man she really loves," she argued. "It is a regrettable fact, but horribly true." "Then you love this man, Arthur Rumbold? Come, do not tell me an untruth. We are old enough friends to be frank with each other." "Yes, we are. I am frank with you, and tell you that you have blamed yourself for assisting me, now that you have discovered my folly." "Folly of what?" "Of my love. Is it not folly to love a man whom one can never marry?" "Then he is already married, perhaps?" She was silent, and glancing at her I saw that tears stood in her magnificent eyes. She was thinking of him, without a doubt. I recollected those words penned by the dead man; that allegation that she was fooling me. Yes. What he said was correct. The scales had now fallen from my eyes. I read the truth in her white countenance, that face so very beautiful, but, alas! so false. Who was Nello, the man with whom she corresponded by means of that cipher--the man she trusted so implicitly? Was he identical with Arthur Rumbold? Had she killed the writer of that extraordinary letter because he knew the truth--because she was in terror of exposure and ruin?