I looked inquiringly at Mrs. Lascelles.  She could tell me what she pleased, but I was not going to anticipate her by displaying an independent knowledge of matters which she might still care to keep to herself.  If she chose to open up a painful subject, well, the pain be upon her own head.  Yet I must say that there was very little of it in her face as our eyes met.  There was the eager candour that one could not help admiring, with the glowing look of gratitude which I had done so ridiculously little to earn; but the fine flushed face betrayed neither pain, nor shame, nor the affectation of one or the other.  There was a certain shyness with the candour.  That was all.

“You know quite well what I mean,” continued Mrs. Lascelles, with a genuine smile at my disingenuous face.  “When you met me before it was under another name, which you have probably quite forgotten.”

“No, I remember it.”

“Do you remember my husband?”

“Perfectly.”

“Did you ever hear—­”

Her lip trembled.  I dropped my eyes.

“Yes,” I admitted, “or rather I saw it for myself in the papers.  It’s no use pretending I didn’t, nor yet that I was the least bit surprised or—­or anything else!”

That was not one of my tactful speeches.  It was culpably, might indeed have been wilfully, ambiguous; and yet it was the kind of clumsy and impulsive utterance which has the ring of a good intention, and is thus inoffensive except to such as seek excuses for offence.  My instincts about Mrs. Lascelles did not place her in this category at all.  Nevertheless, the ensuing pause was long enough to make me feel uneasy, and my companion only broke it as I was in the act of framing an apology.

“May I bore you, Captain Clephane?” she asked abruptly.  I looked at her once more.  She had regained an equal mastery of face and voice, and the admirable candour of her eyes was undimmed by the smallest trace of tears.

“You may try,” said I, smiling with the obvious gallantry.

“If I tell you something about myself from that time on, will you believe what I say?”

“You are the last person whom I should think of disbelieving.”

“Thank you, Captain Clephane.”

“On the other hand, I would much rather you didn’t say anything that gave you pain, or that you might afterward regret.”

There was a touch of weariness in Mrs. Lascelles’s smile, a rather pathetic touch to my mind, as she shook her head.

“I am not very sensitive to pain,” she remarked.  “That is the one thing to be said for having to bear a good deal while you are fairly young.  I want you to know more about me, because I believe you are the only person here who knows anything at all.  And then—­you didn’t give me away last night!”

I pointed to the grassy ledge in front of us, such a vivid green against the house now a hundred feet below.

“I am not pushing you over there,” I said.  “I take about as much credit for that.”