“My husband sent them to me.”
“From France?”
“Yes.”
“How did he become possessed of them?”
“He took them out of houses.”
There was a pause in which the young woman did not move in the slightest. She appeared like some oracular statue waiting for the next question.
“Why did you lie to me?” asked the doctor in his level voice.
“Because you would have thought my husband a thief, and I am so proud of him.”
“Can you be proud of him, knowing that he was a thief?”
“Yes,” came the dreamy answer. “It was not his crime. He sent these things to me because I asked him for them and he loved me.”