"You knew," she said. "You must have known, and yet you did not tell me."
"My dear Inez," he said. "How could I, when my suspicions were directed against your own husband?"
"But why do I think of myself?" she said. "I am nothing. But it is you—you, that my heart bleeds for. I, too, concealed my suspicions for your sake."
"And you can think of me," he said, "at a time like this?"
"Of course," she replied. "Yours is the greater sorrow. I knew that my husband was bad—worthless—capable of anything. My eyes are only proving what my reason told me must be so. But with you, it is so much harder. This is the woman you loved, and, whom loving, you must have made your ideal. And now to find that she is—this." And she pressed his hand silently.
"Don't talk about it," said the Secretary.
"You don't quite understand."
"But what is to be done?" she said.
"Nothing, unless they show signs of success, and that I do not think likely. If the secret of the door has withstood the ingenuity of generations in the past, it is likely to do so in the future, unless they tried to force it, and that I think they'd hardly dare to do."
"Listen," she said. And the Secretary heard a noise of creaking, straining wood.