"That is my will. I made it afresh last night. It was witnessed this morning. In it I have made you my executrix, with half my estate. The other half I have left to Lois."
"Now you must leave it all to her," she said.
"No, I wish it to remain as it is. Besides—" He broke off hurriedly, as though seeking to avoid an unpleasant train of thought. "Beatrice, the world won't understand that will. Lois won't, and I pray, for the sake of her happiness, that she may never have to—but if the time comes when this must be put into action, I want you to give her a message from me. Will you?"
"Of course I will. But"—she faced him with a sudden inspired appeal—"must you wait until you are dead to speak to her? Would it not be better to go to her now with your message? I do not know what has come between you both, but I know this much—all forms of pretense are fatal—"
He stopped her with a gesture of decision.
"No," he said. "The secret must remain secret. It has overshadowed my life. It has laden me with a burden of responsibility and shame which I have determined to share with no one. I have taken it upon my shoulders, and I shall carry it to the end. Tell Lois that I have never once swerved in my love for her. Ask her to trust me and think kindly of me. It is not I who have sinned against her—"
"Sinned against her! Who has sinned against her? Do you mean me?"
"No, not you. You also have been sinned against. I also." He sighed wearily. "When I look about me, it seems as though not one of us has not in turn sinned and been sinned against. It is an endless chain of the wrong we do one another."
She laughed, and for the first time there rang in her voice a note of the old harshness.
"Look at me, John. There is no turn and turn about with me. From the beginning I have tricked and lied and fought my way through life. I didn't care whom I hurt so long as I got through. I sinned. Who has sinned against me?"