"No. You were only kind and good, as you would have been to anyone."
"Kind and good? Rubbish! It was you—all of you—who were kind and good. Oh, I don't forget what you did for me, and never shall. I feel"—it was the very feeling that had so oppressed him in the case of the lady at Sandridge—"under a load of obligation to you that I can never hope to discharge. But still—but still—though I trust I showed some of the gratitude I felt—I cannot remember how I came to give you the idea—I must have done something, I suppose; one is a blundering fool without knowing it—"
"No," she protested—"no, no! It was my own idea entirely."
"But I can't reconcile that with your character, Miss Pennycuick."
"Nor can I," she laughed bitterly.
"There's a mystery somewhere. Did anybody tell you anything? Did Miss Frances put constructions on innocent appearances? Did—"
"No," Mary resolutely stopped him. "It is good of you to try to make excuses, but there is no excuse for me—none. Francie only said what she knew. I let them believe you were my lover; I am twenty-seven—I never had one—and—and—oh, I thought that, at least, you might be mine when you were dead! I did not mean to be a liar, as you called me—yes, that is the right word—"
"Forgive me for using it," he muttered. "You do not realise at first that you are lying, when you only act lies and don't speak them. And I DID think that perhaps, that possibly—of course, I was ridiculously wrong—it was atrocious, unforgivable—I don't ask you to forgive me—I don't want you to—but those dear days when our little boy—oh, you know!—and when you kissed me that night beside his grave—"
"WHAT!" A lightning change came over the young man, as if the word had been an electric current suddenly shot into him. "KISSED YOU?"
"It was nothing; you did not know you did it—"