"I can't help feeling cross with you, sir detective. Somebody must bear the blame of not bringing Adele Lowenstein to my wedding. I wrote her that I should take her presence as a sign that she fully believed in the sincerity of my friendship, and that Trafton would thus be assured of my entire faith in her, and yet, she declined."
I do not know what to say in reply. So I drop my eyes and mentally anathematize my own stupidity.
"Do you know why she refused to come?" she persists.
While I still hesitate, Jim—I must say Jim—touches my arm.
"Your delicacy is commendable," he says in my ear. "But would it not be better to tell Mrs. Bethel the truth, than to allow her to think the woman she has befriended, ungrateful?"
I feel that he is wise and I am foolish; so I lift my eyes to her face and say:
"Mrs. Bethel, Adele Lowenstein had one secret that you never guessed. If you had seen her, as I saw her, at the bedside of your husband, on the day after the attempt upon his life, you, of all women in the world, would understand best why she is not at your wedding to-day."
She utters a startled exclamation, and her eyes turn involuntarily to where Carl Bethel stands, tall and splendid, among his guests; then a look of pitying tenderness comes into her face.
"Poor Adele!" she says softly, and turns slowly away.