"Of course, you realize that everyone said I fled to you—because we had had an affair. Later when I was divorced and you saw nothing more of me, they laughed at me—they thought I had grabbed at the reflection and dropped my bone in the stream."
"But, Marian! You understood—"
She raised a hand. "Please let me finish in my own way. It's not too easy at best."
"Forgive me."
"To their eyes, my one chance of rehabilitating my life lay in marrying you. I mention this to forestall misunderstanding; because in what I've got to say next it might logically occur to you as a thing I'd contemplated myself."
"Surely," he exclaimed, "you don't think me so mean of mind as that."
With a somewhat rueful smile, she continued:
"When things became unendurable at home and I fled to your cottage, what did you think of me?"
His response was immediate: "That you were in a panic. It seemed to you a case of any port in a storm. I was geographically near and—"