"Do you think it possible?" I asked, "that I could bring sorrow upon you?"

"Very possible indeed," she murmured, avoiding my eyes, and looking steadily across the park.

"Since when have you discovered this?" I asked.

"Within the last hour," she answered.

I laid my hand upon hers. She withdrew it at once. There was a distinct change in her manner towards me.

"I suppose," she remarked, "that I ought to congratulate you. You are certainly cleverer than I gave you credit for. You have deceived Mr. Stanley, and he is not at all an easy person for a beginner to deceive."

I kept silence. I began to see the trouble into which I was drifting.

"But," she continued, "you did not attempt to deceive me. And in this matter, Mr. Stanley and I are one!"

"You have told him!" I exclaimed.

"Not yet," she answered, "but I am forced to do so, unless—"