"Would you feel the same if Alice were involved?" she asked, quietly.
"Alice?" he repeated.
"Yes; suppose this same question came up with her, would you not be the first to insist that the facts be proven?"
"What can I say?" he asked, brokenly. "This means a public trial and all the scandal that goes with it. It means a rehearsing of all that past which I have tried to help you to forget. It means pain and sorrow and suffering to you, dear—to you whom I would shield with my life from just what now threatens you."
"A trial, Robert?" Mrs. Gorham asked, looking at him with a startled expression. "Do you mean that there has to be a trial?"
"Of course," Gorham replied, wondering at the unexpected change in her attitude.
Suddenly she buried her face against his shoulder and burst into tears.
"Oh, I couldn't stand that!" she cried.
Gorham gently held her face from him and looked into it kindly but questioningly. "Why not?" he asked.
"It would kill me," she replied, not meeting his look.
"Is there anything which the trial could bring out which you have not already told me, Eleanor?" he asked, quietly.