"The girl that Reuben is going to marry!" I repeated. "Why, I had always taken it for granted that he was going to marry you."
"But I told you, most explicitly, that was not so!" she exclaimed with some impatience.
"I know you did," I admitted ruefully; "but I thought—well, I imagined that things had, perhaps, not gone quite smoothly and—"
"Did you suppose that if I had cared for a man, and that man had been under a cloud, I should have denied the relation or pretended that we were merely friends?" she demanded indignantly.
"I am sure you wouldn't," I replied hastily. "I was a fool, an idiot—by Jove, what an idiot I have been!"
"It was certainly very silly of you," she admitted; but there was a gentleness in her tone that took away all bitterness from the reproach.
"The reason of the secrecy was this," she continued; "they became engaged the very night before Reuben was arrested, and, when he heard of the charge against him, he insisted that no one should be told unless, and until, he was fully acquitted. I was the only person who was in their confidence, and as I was sworn to secrecy, of course I couldn't tell you; nor did I suppose that the matter would interest you. Why should it?"
"Imbecile that I am," I murmured. "If I had only known!"
"Well, if you had known," said she; "what difference could it have made to you?"
This question she asked without looking at me, but I noted that her cheek had grown a shade paler.