"I knew there was something. We have not lived so long together for me not to know you through and through. And you are as open as the day."
"It was a horrid thing, a creeping, lying thing."
"An anonymous letter." His eyes fluttered nervously under the droop of the long lashes. "You should have put it in the fire, darling."
"I did. There was so little of it that unfortunately I saw it all at a glance. It is horrid to think that any one about here could do such a thing."
Suddenly she laughed. She had a peculiarly joyous laugh.
"They,—whoever wrote it—should have said something more likely to be believed. They said—I beg your pardon for telling you, Shawn—that you were visiting a lady at the Waterfall Cottage."
She was looking at him and suddenly she saw the shadows come in his face which had had the power to disturb her before: or she thought she did. The upper part of his face was in shadow from the balsam that dropped its trails like a fringe over the arch.
"You did not believe it, Mary?"
"What do you think? Would you believe such a story of me?"
"Don't!" he said, and there was something sharp, like a cry, in the protest. "No reptile would be base enough to spit at you."