"It might be safer for you to believe it," replied Hartley.
"Safer! I don't understand you! You talk in riddles? How safer?"
Irene showed some irritation.
"Safer as to your good name," replied her husband.
"My good name is in my own keeping," said the young wife, proudly.
"Then, for Heaven's sake, remain its safe custodian," replied Emerson. "Don't let even the shadow of a man like Major Willard fall upon it."
"I am sorry to see you so prejudiced," said Irene, coldly; "and sorry, still further, that you have so poor an opinion of your wife."
"You misapprehend me," returned Hartley. "I am neither prejudiced nor suspicious. But seeing danger in your way, as a prudent man I lift a voice of warning. I am out in the world more than you are, and see more of its worst side. My profession naturally opens to me doors of observation that are shut to many. I see the inside of character, where others look only upon the fair outside."
"And so learn to be suspicious of everybody," said Irene.
"No; only to read indices that to many others are unintelligible."