"Is she happy?"
"Very happy. She and her husband are united by the firmest links of love."
"That is good news, and I am glad to hear it. Is Mr. Carew happy?"
Slight as was the pause before I had made up my mind what reply to give, she took advantage of it.
"Then he is not happy?"
"I should like to speak openly to you," I said. "It is not out of mere light curiosity that I have sought you."
"It is," she said, "entirely at your discretion how you speak to me. You are not here at my bidding."
"True," I replied; "and I am entirely at your mercy. You learn from Mr. Carew's letter that I am on terms of confidential friendship with him, and that he places no restraint upon you. There is no person living who is better acquainted than yourself with the particulars of his young life, with its strange surroundings, its isolation, its lack of light. Dominated by such dark influences, it would not have been matter for wonder had Mr. Carew grown into a morose, savage man, believing only in evil, and capable only of it. The contrary is the case. He has faith in goodness; he has won the love of a good woman. His heart is tender, his nature charitable. When, before parting with you, he asked you to enlighten him as to the mystery which reigned in his home, there may have been some valid reason for your refusal--although, even then, as his parents were dead and he was alone in the world, such refusal was capable of a construction more hurtful than the truth might have been."
She interrupted me here by saying, "It could not have been."
"But," I urged, "might not the truth, painful though it were, have contributed to avert evil consequences?"