"I will never leave you, if you like," she murmured softly.
"Never, Cynthia?"
"So long as we both do live. You know what I mean?"
"I daren't think. You don't mean that you will now—now become——"
"Your wife? Yes, if you will have me, Hubert. There is no barrier between us now."
"Your father?" he murmured, looking at her with weary wistful eyes.
"My father sent me to you to-day. No, darling, I have not told him."
"I wish to Heaven you had, Cynthia!"
"What! I betray your confidence? No, I could not do that. But he had some notion already, Hubert. He told me that he suspected you—or your sister—some time ago; and he said to me to-day that he believed that you could have cleared him if you had liked."
"And what did you say? I wish that you had found it in your heart to tell him everything you knew."