Even now she was deceiving me. She would allow no word of her mysterious secret to pass her lips. It had always been the same. She would tell me absolutely nothing, vaguely asserting that to utter the truth would be to invoke an avenging power that she dreaded. I remembered how she had seemed terrorised on more than one occasion when I had demanded the truth, yet what I had learned that night increased my suspicions. "If I forgive and seek no explanation of the past," I said at last, "we must, I suppose, remain parted." "Ah, yes!" she gasped. "But only for a few short weeks. Then we will come together again never to part--never." "I can forgive on one condition only," I said--"that you tell me the truth regarding the dastardly theft from me on the day of Dudley's death." For an instant she was silent. Then, burying her face on my shoulder, sobbing, she answered in a tone so low as to be almost inaudible,-- "I cannot!" Gently but firmly I put her from me, although she clung about my neck, urging me to pity her. "I cannot pity you if you refuse to repose confidence in me," I answered. "I do not refuse," she cried. "It is because my secret is of such a nature that, if divulged, it would wreck both your own happiness and mine." "Then to argue further is absolutely useless," I answered coldly. "We must part." "You intend to leave me without forgiveness," she wailed. "Ah, you will not be so cruel, Geoffrey. Surely you can see how passionately I love you." "You do not, however, love me sufficiently well to risk all consequences of divulging your mysterious secret," I retorted, with almost brutal indifference, turning slowly from her. "Then kiss me, Geoffrey," she cried wildly, springing towards me and again entwining her soft arms about my neck. "Kiss me once again--if for the last time." Our lips met for an instant, then slowly I disengaged myself and strode towards the door. In her refusal to throw light upon the incidents that had so long held me perplexed and bewildered, I fancied she was shielding someone. Although crushed and downcast, I had resolved to go forth into the world again with my terrible burden of sorrow concealed beneath a smiling countenance. I regretted deeply that I had sought her, now that I was aware of the gulf that lay between us. "Stay, Geoffrey! Stay. I cannot bear that you should go," she wailed. Halting, I turned towards her, saying,-- "When I have learnt the truth, then only will I return. Till then, I can have no faith in you." "But you are my husband, Geoffrey. I love you." She tottered forward unevenly, as if to follow me, but ere I could save her she staggered and fell forward upon the carpet in a dead faint.