“But why did you do it—masquerade in the Landis farmhouse? I remember somebody said ‘Roland Cary’ had ‘notions.’”
“I did it to be near a friend—to have a chance to shelter a friend without attracting notice. A woman—the Other—the one that Charlie Danton—”
“O-oh! It must have been she Cleborne saw at the window—and I thought he was warning me about you!”
“I kept her out of harm’s way—really in hiding. I didn’t know how it would all end, but it did end perfectly.”
“You mean that Madge Yarnell ran away with Charlie Danton, and solved the problem?”
“Not only that. The very night before our elopement—yours and mine—she received a letter, a dear letter, from her husband. They’d been on the point of making it up for weeks. You see, nothing impossible had occurred.”
“I see.”
He had put down the lamp so suddenly that the light had flickered out. The mist was gone, and the velvety blackness stretched unbroken from shore to shore. Far down the sound, the red rim of the moon was rising from the water.
“Child,” he said, “for a young woman of your position you have married in a very reckless and off-hand way.”
“I knew you were—real. I knew I could trust you.”