"Go with him!" cried Letitia. "I'd hang with him if I could! Oh, Nan, you don't know what it is to love a person as I love Roger! I believe I could be perfectly happy exiled, hunted, poor, in some impossible South Sea island, if I could only have him all to myself. While I was upstairs I put a few things in a bag; I brought it down and left it in the hall, and I thought that you could take it with you when you go. That couldn't excite any suspicion, and then if I have to leave in a hurry--" Nan could not let her go on like this. "Letitia," she said in a sharp tone, as if rousing a sleeper, "you simply can't talk like that. You must believe in your husband's innocence. Your face alone would hang him." "I do believe in it," answered Letitia; "only I can't help seeing some terrible coincidences. There is no one in the world knows more about poisons than Roger does. He is always talking about the Borgias and what they used. And after all, Nan, I was brought up to face facts. There is a streak of weakness in Roger where women are concerned--a certain vanity." "There is in every man." "And then, Nan, I love my mother-in-law; but I can't help seeing she did not bring him up right. She spoiled him; not that she made him selfish or self-indulgent--no one could do that to Roger; but she did give him too much confidence in his own ability to arrange any situation. He jumps into anything-- Oh, can't you see how he might easily be led on to do something like this?" "No," said Nan; "no. I'm not his wife--I never saw him, but I feel sure he did not do this." Perhaps her manner was more offensive than she meant it to be; but for some reason Letty's rather alarming calm suddenly broke into anger. "That's impertinent, Nan," she said. "Why should you always think you understand better than anyone else? He's my husband. If you had any delicacy of feeling, you'd admit that if anyone knew the truth about him, I do--not you, who never saw him. It's easy enough for you to come preaching the beauty of perfect faith. Don't you suppose I'd believe in him if I could?" And so on and on. It was as if she hated Nan for believing in him when she didn't. Nan let her talk for a few minutes, and then at the first pause she got up and walked to the door. "I think I'll go and sit with your mother," she said. "Don't tell her what I've been saying--don't tell her that I have doubt of Roger." "You know I would not do that, Letty." "I don't know what you'd do in your eternal wish to know more about people than anyone else knows." Nan left the room with a heavy heart. Did she want to be omniscient? Was it impertinent to be surer of a man's innocence than his wife was? Well, if he were innocent, Letitia would never forgive her--that was clear. She found Mrs. Lewis alone in an upper room. She was standing looking out the window, her arms folded, her body tilted slightly backward, while she crooned sadly to herself. As Nan entered she shook her head slowly at her.