“I know what you thought!” I broke in, my heart beating so now that my voice shook a little, though I struggled to seem calm.  “You said to yourself, ’It was Maxine who let the man in.  He is with her now.  I shall find them together.’”

“Yes,” Raoul admitted.  “But I didn’t try the handle of the door, as I had of the gate.  I rang.  I couldn’t bring myself to take you unawares.”

“Do you think still that I let a man in, and hid him when I heard you ring?” I asked. (For an instant I was inclined to tell the story Ivor had advised me to tell; but I saw how excited Raoul was; I saw how, in painting the picture for me, he lived through the scene again, and, in spite of himself, suffered almost as keenly as he had suffered in the experience.  I saw how his suspicions of me came crawling into his heart, though he strove to lash them back.  I dared not bring Ivor out from the other room, if he were still there.  He was too handsome, too young, too attractive in every way.  If Raoul had been jealous of Count Godensky, whom he knew I had refused, what would he feel towards Ivor Dundas, a stranger whose name I had never mentioned, though he was received at my house after midnight?  I was thankful I hadn’t taken Ivor’s advice and introduced the two men at first, for in his then mood Raoul would have listened to no explanations.  He and I would never have arrived at the understanding we had reached now.  And not having been frank at first, I must be secret to the end.)

The very asking of such a bold question—­“Do you think I let a man in, and hid him?” helped my cause with Raoul.

“No,” he said, “I can’t think it.  I won’t, and don’t think it.  And you need tell me nothing.  I love you.  And so help me God, I won’t distrust you again!”

Just as it entered my mind to risk everything on the chance that Ivor had by this time found his way out, I heard, or fancied I heard, a faint sound in the next room.  He was there still.

Instead of throwing open the door, as it had occurred to me to do, saying, “Let us look for the man, and make sure no one else let him in,” I laughed out abruptly, as if on a sudden thought, but really to cover the sound if it should come again.

“Oh, Raoul!” I exclaimed, in the midst of the laughter with which I surprised him.  “You’re taking this too seriously.  A thousand times I thank you for trusting me in spite of appearances, but—­after all, were they so much against me?  You seem to think I am the only young woman in this house.  Marianne, poor dear, is old enough, it’s true.  But I have a femme de chambre and a cuisiniere, both under twenty-five, both pretty, and both engaged to be married.” (This was true.  Ah, what a comfort to speak the truth to him!) “Doesn’t it occur to you that, at this very moment, a couple of lovers may be sitting hand in hand on the seat under the old yew arbour?  Can’t you imagine how they started and tried to hold their breath lest you should hear, as you opened the gate and came up the path?”