A Point of Honor

I

FROM the blazing holocaust on the hearth to the one remaining packet on my lap she looked. . . . My letters to him during that fatal punitive expedition; his last to me, — unfinished, the envelope stamped, addressed, — returned officially with the other ‘effects,’ closing act in his soldier’s career. We had spent the day, as every day for the past fortnight, his mother and I, going through the cases of letters, papers, clothes — all those intimate remote relics of the dead,

‘Oh, don’t keep them, child! Burn them, burn! I say it as his mother and loving you. Never keep letters. Think of some stranger handling them as we have had to do! Besides — I’m old: I know.’ Her voice deepened. ‘Carry him, his words, in your heart — you ’ll remember easily enough so long as love for him lasts. What is the written word but a sword in the wound — a sword in the hand of the enemy?’

‘Oh, no, no,’ I cried, ‘I could n’t do it — could n’t! Just this last one I must keep!’ Yet, with the intuition which comes when egotism is numbed into silence, I knew that his death took more from her, since she had loved the longer. Was there ever a woman who did not feel something of resentful envy for the mother of the man she loved — the woman who has seen him grow to be the Man?

So we parted for that day, and out of the house into the January twilight I stumbled, deaf and blind, feeling no pavement beneath my feet, no wind on my face — nothing but those papers, stained, worn, as he had carried them next his heart, clutched close to mine.

My home was in Cumberland Place; every inch of the way from his here in Sussex Square was familiar to me. I turned into the Bayswater Road as a sleepwalker might; people passed or overtook me as wraiths; I slid between them, mechanically avoiding contact. Then at the corner of Albion Street I was brought to an abrupt standstill. Close to the curb stood a taxi, and swiftly toward it down the steps of one of the houses on the same side swept a tall woman, closely veiled and dressed in mourning as deep as my own. That sombre point of union roused me to look her over. Not a gleam of white to indicate her face; only one hand, ungloved, shone like a plaster cast against her cloak — an exquisitely modeled hand, narrow, long-fingered. Blinking, twinkling in the taxi lamps, a marquise ring, an emerald set in diamonds, glittered on the forefinger curving round a small, whitish, oblong parcel — again flashed through me that sense of union as involuntarily my own fingers tightened about my packet of letters. The white block so easily discernible against the expanse of black dress slid out of sight, I thought into some pocket or bag, as she whirled into the taxi. In a second it was off — noiselessly as if on grass. And why I soon discovered, as I stepped after to cross the street: it was thick with newly laid-down straw. My feet shuffled in it — struck against something hard. I stooped and at once recognized the oblong packet so like my own. In the very instant of picking it up, out from the shadows behind me shot a man. He seized my arm, shaking it violently.

‘Madam — those letters!’

Possibly it was the shock of alien touch that roused instant antagonism, possibly also the word ‘letters’ recalled the phrase, ‘a sword in the hand of the enemy.’ I make no excuse, in any case, for myself. This is what I did. Into the under flap pocket of my huge muff I slipped that packet, facing my assailant.

‘I have nothing belonging to you, sir! Remove your hand at once from my arm.’

He loosed me, but fell back barely a foot’s length.

‘I saw you pick up this very moment from the road a packet which I claim as mine. I demand it, madam.’

Voice, dress, those of a gentleman. Yet I hesitated. To whomsoever the letters belonged — and he had betrayed a curious knowledge of the contents of the packet — the woman, not he, had dropped them.

He glanced rapidly up and down the Bayswater Road, up Albion Street, then stepped so close that I could feel his breath on my face.

‘I apologize, madam, but those letters I must have. Give me the packet at once, or I shall be obliged to take it from you. It is in your muff.’

Now anger flared up in me. Anger — fear negligible. For months past I had lived in a world without hope, without sun — what was left for me to fear? And, as all will understand who have passed through some such paralyzing sorrow, my brain seemed clairvoyantly intuitive, judging swiftly, impartially, as if I were merely a spectator in this oddly arisen drama.

Over against Stanhope Place was stationed a policeman who had been some five years upon the beat. Every day at certain hours on my way to and from Sussex Square I had passed him. To and fro I had gone; to and fro the man I was to have married and I had gone together — as friends, as lovers; at times of happiness, and sorrowfully when those of parting came. Of late I had walked alone and in mourning — the face of this constable sympathetic as we nodded greeting. One of those unadmitted friends — friends who may belong to our inner life with no claim on the life lived out in public. After all, the account of the Sdisaster had been in all the papers, there had been portraits, intimate personal details. . . .

‘A little way up,’ I said sharply, ‘there is a policeman. I engage to show you in his presence the packet of letters I hold within my muff. Prove that they are yours — you shall have them.’

With that I broke away up the Bayswater Road.

‘This gentleman claims to be the possessor of letters I have here,’ I said. ‘He accuses me of having picked them up in the street. You have often seen me about. Do you by any chance know my name? Where I live?’

It takes a good deal to upset one of the force. This member of it coughed, stood at attention, gave the answer I anticipated.

‘Miss Caerlyon, Miss Lettice Caerlyon of Cumberland Place, I think, Miss.’

The man at my elbow started, but in a moment I was holding my own packet of letters within the circle of the streetlamp light. Uppermost was the one which had never reached me. Unsoiled by travel, name and address stood out boldly in that unmistakably masculine hand; the thin envelope, unpostmarked East African stamp, carried their witness. Rapidly I turned up the remaining letters, corner by corner, showed name, regiment, and station in my own writing. ‘Call me a taxi,’ I went on to my policeman, ‘if, that is, you can assure this gentleman that these are my own. And as for you, sir,’ I added, swinging round in high-handed dignity, ‘I demand an apology for your unwarrantable manner of addressing me. You have my name — be so good as to give me yours.’

‘You can charge ’im, Miss,’ put in my policeman paternally. ‘We’ll get it right enough.’

A pause: eyes like a searchlight upon me. I gave back look for look. I was committed now to my own action, my decision made and adamant. Those letters should pass from my hands only into those which had dropped them.

‘Do you understand French?’ he asked abruptly. I nodded.

‘I don’t want the police to have my name, but since I know yours, and it is one I greatly respect,’ he bowed, ‘there can be no reason to withhold it. May I ask you simply to let it remain unknown otherwise? I apologize most sincerely for my mistake — for my rudeness, even so, in addressing you. I am extremely ashamed, regret it more than I can say. Pray forgive me.’

Very nearly at that tone I laid down my arms. What restrained me was the sudden remembrance that after all he had not attempted to establish his right to claim that dropped packet. Gravely and silently, therefore, I bowed acceptance of his apologies, which he repeated in English for the benefit of the policeman. Then he helped me into the taxi, giving me a card — face downward. I saw the glint of silver as he rejoined the policeman, after which he rushed back to the corner of Albion Street.

We were but a stone’s throw from our house — I had only time for a quick glance at the card. The name was that of a man well known in the Army, of whom I had often heard my fiancé speak. I jumped up to direct the chauffeur to drive back. The truth, of course, to a man like Colonel L-! No one could really blame me for having refused to hand over the letters, if such the packet contained, to an unknown claimant. ‘A sword in the hands of the enemy!' The words suddenly rang in my ears as if an unseen Solomon had spoken them.

Colonel Lhad not come from the same house as the veiled lady — of that I was sure. What was he doing in Albion Street at that moment? Was he shadowing her? Had she already refused to give him the packet and was he waiting to take it by force, as from me? Was he the writer or the person to whom the letters were written? What did that uncontrolled, unconsidered attack really imply? I sat back again in my seat, waiting till we drew up in Cumberland Place. Then quietly, opening the door with my latchkey, I entered the house, going direct to my rooms, — I had long since had my private sitting room, — found my maid waiting, and remembered that dinner was to be an hour earlier as my father was due to take the chair at a political meeting. I had only time to lock both bundles in the dispatch box which held all my fiancé’s letters to me during the past four years, the key of which never left a chain round my neck.

II

I was living with my father and stepmother — the only child. My stepmother and I were excellent friends, but she was one of those women to whom talk is necessary to health. She told everything to my father; he discussed everything with her. To confide the adventure to either was unthinkable, since he considered her judgment superior to his own. The one person upon whose wisdom I could rely was the woman whom I had hoped to call ‘Mother,’ but I shrank — yes, with all honest facing of my action I shrank from letting her know to what use I had put that last letter of her son’s. I thought of taking the packet to Scotland Yard, but remembered that if unclaimed it would be examined officially. Perhaps, after all, it would be better to look for some address myself and then return it privately. Colonel L——’s attack showed the intense importance someone attached to the letters. After dinner, in the secure quiet of my sitting room, I therefore took upon myself this task of scrutiny.

There were some fifty letters in all, the outer covering paper blank, the packet itself tied with faded ribbon. I glanced through cursorily. Interest or curiosity I had none — I had had enough of such work of late. All I wanted was just some address to which I could safely dispatch them.

Not one of the letters bore any. Some were dated, some not; there were no formal beginnings, no signatures. All were in the same cultivated, feminine hand. This absence of clues obliged me to scrutinize more closely, the task now not only irksome but detestable. Yet no stranger’s eye could have perused those love letters more sympathetically.

For they were love letters: just a replica, so it seemed to me, — the first ten or so, at least, — of many of my own earlier ones, such letters as every girl of a certain type and education writes to the One. I judged the writer to be very young at the time of writing. Then came a series in some language unknown to me, — Russian, I surmised, — then some twenty in French. The remainder were in cipher. Nonplused, I read the French letters through carefully. A clue there must be somewhere to the writer, a clue that I must have if her property was to be returned to her. These were dated, and recently, — the whole correspondence extended over some fifteen years, — their tone infinitely more mature, more passionate, more intimate, less personal withal. Here were references to meetings and conversations in public, combined with hints at episodes which must never be known. Things artistic, literary, political, were discussed, as if both writer and recipient were in the very heart of these worlds. A note of dispassionate criticism held for the most part, yet every now and again certain persons were alluded to by initials with suspicion and fear, dislike and contempt.

I put down these letters bewildered. These correspondents were obviously extremely intimate; the note running through was that, seemingly, of wife to husband. Whether the two were unmarried, married to each other clandestinely, or continuing an intimacy in secret while married otherwise, it was impossible to say. I locked the packet away at last, my course undecided.

Next day I went to Sussex Square as usual; exchanged a few words with my policeman on the way. He had seen nothing more of Colonel L-. ‘ But,’ said he, ‘I had another gentleman asking me about some lost packet of letters last night. I told him about you.’

I thanked him, my blood running cold. Passing Albion Street, I found that the straw had been removed and that the blinds of one of the houses were down, and on my way home in the dusk I placed myself again where I had stood at the corner, convincing myself that the house of mourning was the one from which the veiled lady had come. On consulting the directory later, I discovered that this house belonged to a Mr. Alexander D-, a man well known in the financial world, prominent in political circles here without being connected with Government, a philanthropist and patron of art. Next day the papers were full of his premature death; his age was given as forty-three, and he left a wife and children. My father discussed him freely, his early life, cosmopolitan upbringing, connection by blood with several prominent European families. I gathered that his reputation stood unsullied, that criticism whether in his public or private life had never touched him.

On Thursday morning a card was brought to me, bearing the name of an eminent firm of solicitors. I went down and found a serene-faced elderly man who introduced himself as Mr. G-, the senior partner. He apologized for intrusion, alluded to unfortunate circumstances which made it essential, confessed that his mission was one of great delicacy, finally came to the point. His firm had been for generations solicitors to the Dfamily, he himself the closest friend of, as well as advisor to, the late Mr. Alexander D-. At this point he paused to ask if he might count on my regarding the interview as strictly private. I gave the assurance and he proceeded. A bundle of letters had been abstracted from the house of Mr. Dthe evening of his death, probably by the person, a lady, who was supposed to have written them. ‘ Supposed, you understand. We have no proof until they are found and decisively proved hers. I alone know of the correspondence as a fact, but the intimacy which gave rise to it has long been suspected by members of the lady’s own family. My last entreaty to him was “Burn”; my first thought, when summoned upon his decease, to search for that bundle in his bedroom safe where I know he kept it. I learned that he had had a visitor within a few hours of his death. There was a private staircase and door to his rooms. No one saw her come or go except the nurse, and she had been ordered to absent herself during the interview. I guessed from that what had become of the letters. No one else in the house knows of their existence or disappearance. Had the lady herself got them, I should feel easier; but on inquiry — and I make no secret, my dear young lady, that I made all inquiries as to who had been seen in or about the house that evening — I came across the startling fact that some other person was searching for a bundle of letters last Tuesday night in Albion Street, alleging that he had dropped them, and that he attacked you, seeing you with some in your hand. I understand that you appealed to the policeman on the beat, who knew you — am I right? What I want to know,’ proceeded Mr. G-, leaning forward to scrutinize me with intense earnestness, — I had placed myself with my back to the light so all his movement did was to bring his own features rather more directly under my observation, — ‘is just exactly what passed that evening as you saw it. I need not assure you of my sympathy — my entire sympathy — with the manner in which, most unjustifiably, you have been drawn into this imbroglio, but my duty is toward my poor friend and his family. If I can identify the man who spoke to you, I shall know if the lady who paid that visit is the one I suspect. If I can be sure of that, I shall confront her.’

His deliberate delivery and choice of words had given me time to sum up the position. The appeal had been straightforward, full explanation given for it. It seemed to me that here was a responsible person honestly concerned for the welfare of the one, prepared to protect the reputation of the other, principal in the affair. An English solicitor of high repute was surely the best possible repository for the letters so far as I was concerned. I resolved to confide the whole story to him, rely on his judgment, act according to his advice. I began with a description of Colonel L-, only withholding his name. ‘He gave me his card, but in confidence,’ I concluded. ‘I ought to respect it if I respect yours.’

‘Immaterial,’ interrupted Mr. Gat once. ‘I know now it was Colonel L-. I only wanted to see if your description of him tallied with that of the policeman. It is the identification of the lady for which I am depending upon you.’

I detailed the entire incident up to my finding of the packet. There I paused to give a minute personal description of the lady.

‘Now, Mr. G-, can you tell me her name from that?’ I wound up. I asked as equally concerned with himself in discovering the truth, had given a pledge of secrecy, was surely entitled to his confidence if I gave him mine without reserve. But over his face came such a sharp look of quick distrust, he shook his head with such emphasis, — ‘No, no, I cannot in any circumstances give you her name!’ — that the impulse I had had toward complete frankness vanished. ‘She got into the taxi and I crossed the street — to be stopped by Colonel L-,’ I finished abruptly.

His thoughts flew to the encounter.

‘Colonel Lis one of the lady’s relations by marriage. If he has the letters they will certainly be used against her. I know he feels deeply the slur — supposed, you understand; without those letters we have no proof — on his family’s honor by this — supposed connection. I know he has been shadowing her movements closely during my client’s illness.’ Here Mr. Gsighed profoundly. I was moved afresh by his loyalty and evident desire to do the right thing by all concerned; determined once more to tell the truth — show the letters. Feeling for the key of my dispatch box I was halfway to the door when a thought struck me.

‘You would never use the letters, of course?’ I said.

‘Use? Oh, no. Merely hold them until — until we were sure the rest of the correspondence was burned or given up to us.’

‘Oh! His letters!’

I had not thought of these. In a flash I understood. Respectable blackmail, in fact. Whether it was Colonel Lfighting for the honor of his family, or Mr. Gfor that of his client, the sole survivor of the clandestine alliance was to be the scapegoat! The letters were safer with me. I returned again to my seat and, with assurances of secrecy and polite regrets that I could be of so little use, signified that the interview must be at an end.

III

I was alone in my sitting room the following Saturday morning when a lady was shown in, announced as ‘Miss L-.’

‘I do not really know you, Miss Caerlyon,’ she began, her voice gentle and sweet, ‘though I confess at once that I asked if you were at home as if we were personally acquainted. Forgive me — but I needed so urgently to see you.’ She paused with a wistful smile. I murmured reassurance, begged her to sit down.

She seemed about thirty-five, her face sensitive, delicately moulded, her gray eyes disarmingly pleading. Tears filled them; in her nervousness she kept untying and refastening her veil, stripping, replacing, again removing her gloves! Suddenly, as I sat silently waiting, she leaned forward, clasping her hands in piteous entreaty.

‘Oh, don’t blame me. Don’t be vexed with me for coming — the suspense, misery — it is for the sake of my family — all more than I could bear! The other night — Albion Street — you met my brother, Colonel L-, there. Ah, you recollect the name! He told me.’ She paused, twisting her hands in and out, lips quivering, pale, soft cheeks suffused with color.

At the first word I had been on my guard; now, at the emphasizing of her name, I deliberately sat down back to the windows.

‘The letters were mine,’ she burst out again. ‘I took them from that house in — in self-defense. My brother had followed me — saw me drop the packet, saw you, as he thought, pick it up. Oh, don’t think we mistrust your statements — the letters you had were too sad a proof of their being indeed your own. But,’ she moistened her lips, her face now bloodless, ‘oh, the anxiety as to where mine are now! So I ventured to come, beg you to try to recall every incident of that evening. Did you see me drop them? Was there anyone there at the time? Could you even tell me the number of the taxi? I was so overwhelmed by the loss I never thought of looking.’ She buried her face in her hands. I jumped up, sprang toward my dispatch box, had it in my hands. Here was the very opportunity for which I had been waiting.

As I turned again, the sun which I had been blocking was full upon her, lit up rings and hands. Across my mental vision flashed remembrance of that twinkling, diamond-beset emerald, the long-fingered sculptured hand of its owner. These hands were square, baby small, short-fingered. And in that moment I knew she was lying to me. I put back the box, fumbling with the key to give myself time.

‘ My — my letters are in there. Those I showed to your brother,’ I found myself saying. ‘I had the impulse to show you — but pray forgive me, excuse my doing so.’

I went back toward her, picking up a sheet of paper from my bureau as I passed. ‘Indeed I would help you if I could. If you would leave me some address?’

She hesitated, finally wrote her name and the address of a club. Then, as I remained standing, she rose. We exchanged a few conventional words and she left.

I looked at the writing, — not that of the letters, — rang up the club, found she was indeed a member. Yet she had lied, she and her brother. This visit had been concocted in concert with him — to get those letters if so be that I had found them! A woman’s device to catch another woman. And again I felt, how surely the appeal would have had the desired effect if only the whole truth had been told me. Cut alas, how certainly the untruths with which I had interlaced myself at the beginning of this affair were subtly infecting the attitude of others toward me! Why should truth be given me, the most accomplished liar of all?

I passed the next twenty-four hours in a state of worry nearer obsession. On Sunday night, after tossing in bed for hours, nerve-racked, I sank into that sleep wherein one is helplessly conscious of one’s dreams. Suddenly I awoke with a start, shivering, certain that I heard someone in my sitting room, footsteps, the click of a turning key. I leaped from bed — the letters! Someone was trying to steal them — again! But they were my own, my own precious letters! I switched on the light, bounded into the sitting room. The dying fire still flickered gently about it, over the table where stood my dispatch box, upon its brass-clamped corners. I unlocked it, searched feverishly. All was safe! Standing barefooted in my nightgown, alone in the silence, I realized that I had been the victim of an hallucination. Yet so strong was the impression that I could not go back at once to bed.

Hugging the box, I sat down before the fire and coaxed it into life. Then, as it blazed, there came over me a sudden overwhelming impulse. Tearing open the box, I dragged out the letters — hers, mine. There in the fire I burned them all, one by one. As letter after letter flared and dried into charred nothingness, I kept repeating the words, foolishly as one repeats in sleep: ‘A sword in the wound for me, a sword in the hand of the enemy for her!’

Going back to bed, I slept profoundly.

The next morning the whole episode seemed a nightmare — it was not till I went to the box, laughing at myself for imagining that the letters were destroyed, that I realized my act. Even so, it seemed that it had been without compulsion, as a sleepwalker, in a dream.

‘So you have burned them at last,’ said his mother to me that morning; and, at my start, ‘I see it. in your face. Dear child, I spoke from experience.’

I kissed her, murmuring, ‘You were right.’

That evening, on my return, I was told that Miss Lhad called again and had asked to be allowed to wait, saying that she was sure I expected her. I went straight to my sitting room, examined the dispatch box. The lock had been forced!

IV

I never met either Colonel L-, his sister, or Mr. Gagain. Nor did they attempt to open correspondence with me. Nor did I inquire further about the owner of the letters. They were burned: I was no longer their custodian. Moreover, life began to advance new claims upon me.

In the summer the war in the Balkans reached its height. News came through of the death of nurses at the front. The Red Cross Society made appeal to the various local centres here in England for volunteers, as experienced as might be. I had for the past four years taken an active interest in the work of the Society; it was obviously an appeal to be answered by women of leisure, means, and few personal ties. My services were accepted, and a week later I was ready to start. The Society meanwhile called a special meeting in London to explain the part it was taking in the Balkan trouble. A particularly influential committee was arranged and the hall was full of notable personages. As I swept my opera glasses slowly over the platform my eye was suddenly arrested. One of the ladies was taking off her gloves: something in the movement, the shape of the hands against her black dress, stirred reminiscence. Then I caught, twinkling and blinking at me, the flash of the diamond-beset emerald! I turned to a steward, asked her name. He replied that she was the wife of Lord X-, a prominent official at the War Office, herself the daughter of a member of the Austrian Embassy. He pointed out to me both Lord X-, beside her on the platform, and her two young sons in the front row of the audience.

I decided to take the risk. On my visiting card I wrote these words: ‘The letters were found. If you understand my allusion change your marquise ring to your other hand. I will speak to you in the anteroom after the meeting.’

Then I slipped out, obtained an official envelope from the Secretary, and sent the missive up to Lady Xby a steward. She took, opened it carelessly — then started violently. I saw her face wither, whiten, shrink. Turning over the card, she read my name, and there succeeded, covering her emotion as with a veil, an expression of relief. For some moments she sat absolutely still, then tore the card into shreds, deliberately placed them in her purse, transferred with equal equanimity the marquise ring to her other hand, and put on her gloves.

In the anteroom I went straight up to her. I was in uniform; she turned with a conventional smile, expecting some official message.

‘I wrote the note,’ I said bluntly.

From head to foot she flinched, then shivered with the imposition of rigid self-control. Her eyes, blue, almondshaped, met mine; we surveyed each other appraisingly. Suddenly the atmosphere was vibrant, tense, and I knew, past all doubt , that I was at last truly face to face with the writer of those letters! I began to speak, briefly, quickly, for we were close-pressed by the crowd; detailed my share in the matter, eyes and brain meanwhile piecing writer with the written word. She was some eight years my senior, about thirty-two or -three. Features un-English in their type of beauty, face worn by sleepless strain — I knew the signs—to etherealized unreality. Fire in the bright blue eyes, cold withal; passion in the mouth, deliberately reticent; the forehead intellectual, limited, since impulse and calculation fought for mastery in the face. A piece of steel which might be bent in any direction or whittle itself away, grain by grain, to extinction — broken never!

Without the flicker of an eyelid she listened. A citizeness of the Great World, accustomed to live out her life in public. It showed me with what a powerfully disorganizing shock my message had come upon her. Her lips hardly moving, every feature steady, she undercurrented my narrative with ejaculations in French, Russian, Italian. Only once I caught the words: ‘Mais pour une autre femme — seulement une femme inconnue! Incroyable, incroyable!’

I ceased. She broke out in rapid undertone: —

‘Ruin — it would have meant ruin, disgrace, worse than death. Not a day, a moment, but I ask myself, “When? How? The blow must fall. When? How? To-day? To-night? Oh, mon Dieu! Enemies, enemies everywhere! Now he is dead — the letters burned — Dieu soit béni! Madame, Mademoiselle — my friend, my savior! Oh, mon Dieu, had you not —5

Those long-fingered sculptured hands seized mine. At their touch, electric, soft, unyielding, there swept over me in flood the memory of the past months — memories I had been trying to lull—my own so strangely interwoven with hers. Union between us — yes!

‘You have burned his? Oh, I do beg you, burn them! I leave England— shall never return. I shall volunteer for work abroad in any case. Only let me know you are safe — have burned them!’

‘Burn them! Mon Dieu— what do you ask!’ A mask suddenly descended upon her face. Turning, I saw Lord Xand the two boys threading through the crowd toward us.

‘I implore you, be warned. I too, I know—’ Now it was I who, under the swift onrush of cruel memories, was losing self-control; on her face the mask held. She stood regarding me with a look in which curiosity was oddly mixed with speculative admiration. ‘Et pour une autre femme — incroyable!5

‘ Wer nicht verloren nicht treue Liebe kennen hat.5 Goethe’s immortal words rushed to my lips. Her eyes narrowed till between the lashes the blue scintillated like the turning of a knife. I saw some new idea leap into her mind. Quietly, dispassionately, the mask settling firmer down upon her countenance while those glinting eyes flung defiance at the world, she answered me.

‘I trust you. You leave England, you say, immediately, will not return. You shall not go away thinking— that! Never have I so much as swerved in thought from loyalty to my husband, my little sons. I love them — more than life itself. Those letters — merely a blind. If found, a supposed liaison was to be the cover for the real meaning of my relations with Mr. D-.’ Even in that moment I realized how the perfection of her English strengthened as she retreated from the regions of passion. ‘Which is most damaging, think you, to persons in our position — in the diplomatic service, governmental departments generally? The discovery of far-reaching political intrigue or a simple affaire du cœur? Love? No. I am a member of the Secret Intelligence Department in Berlin; so was he. Now do you understand? How could I burn his letters, the only things that would exculpate me with my husband, supposing my letters had fallen into Colonel L-5s hands, — you could not read the cipher, the Russian; he could have done so, — or that I could have held over the Dfamily if Mr. Ghad got them? Now he is dead, my letters burned; I will burn his, take up life again. That side is over forever. I have learned my lesson.5

She was swept from my side by a surge of the crowd. I saw her join her husband, slip her hand under his arm, smile up at him.

Suddenly in the night I awoke, heard my own voice speaking: —

‘The letters are burned. Mr. Dis dead. My word against hers — valueless. Husband, honor — still hers at any rate. She can keep them in any case safely enough now. . . . Am I even yet in possession of the truth?5