"Positive!"
"Yet you seemed very anxious just now that she should wait till you opened the door."
"That was perfectly natural."
"I don't think it was natural at all."
"But—according to Tappington"—
"Because my brother is very good you need not make fun of him."
"I assure you I have no such intention. But what more can I say? I give you my word that I don't know who that unlucky woman was. No doubt she may have been some nearsighted neighbor who had mistaken the house, and I dare say was as thoroughly astonished at my voice as I was at hers. Can I say more? Is it necessary for me to swear that since I have been here no woman has ever entered that door—but"—
"But who?"
"Yourself."
"I know what you mean," she said hurriedly, with her old frightened look, gliding to the outer door. "It's shameful what I've done. But I only did it because—because I had faith in you, and didn't believe what they said was true." She had already turned the lock. There were tears in her pretty eyes.