"Your wife was properly surprised, and glad to see her parents, I presume," said Mrs. Lynn, with an air of polite interest.
His dark lashes lifted, he gazed at her sadly a moment, then they fell again.
"No one could guess what did take place," said Mr. Le Roy. "It was like a romance. You have never written anything stranger in all your novels, Mrs. Lynn. But you must not expect me to describe it to you in the language of fiction. Your own imagination must invest it with all the eloquence it merits. I have been surprised at many things in my life, Mrs. Lynn, but I was never more surprised, never more shocked, than I was in the moment when I led my Beatrix up to her mother. I had expected demonstrations of delighted affection, I beheld only utter dismay and confusion. Can you believe it, Mrs. Lynn? My young wife and the Gordons had never met before in their lives!"
A faint murmur came from her lips, meant to convey surprise. He accepted it as such, and went on slowly:
"Then it all came out. I had been deceived. I had been made the victim of a clever conspiracy. Two beautiful, clever girls had plotted together and the result was this: Beatrix Gordon had never come to Eden. She had gone away and married her lover, and she had sent Laurel Vane to us in her place. It was cleverly planned, as I have said just now, but I have often wondered how Laurel carried it out, and escaped detection. She was innocent and transparent as a child. She was frightened always, I know, for when all came out I could recall many things that pointed to the truth if only I had not been so blind. But fate helped it on, and made me the husband, not of Beatrix Gordon, the daughter of the wealthy, well-born publisher, but of Laurel Vane, the penniless orphan child of an author who, with the genius of an Edgar Allan Poe, had shared all the weaknesses of the great poet and died as miserable."
He paused, Laurel wondered if he could hear her heart beating in the stillness of that place of graves. It sounded so loudly in her ears, it almost drowned his voice.
It was only by the greatest effort of her pride and will that she preserved her outward calmness.
"It was a terrible discovery for me to make," he said. "I was wounded in my love, in my faith, in my pride. Can you imagine what I did, Mrs. Lynn?"
He had lifted his drooping head, and was looking straight into her face. She looked back at him steadily, almost scornfully, as she replied:
"You loved her so dearly, and she made you so happy, perhaps I should not err if I said that you forgave the girl for her sin."