had been, that, the first time she saw Faber, it would be beyond her power to look innocent, that her knowledge would be legible in her face; and much she hoped their first encounter might be in the presence of Helen or some other ignorant friend, behind whose innocent front she might shelter her conscious secrecy.  To truth such a silence must feel like a culpable deception, and I do not think such a painful position can ever arise except from wrong somewhere.  Dorothy could not tell a lie.  She could not try to tell one; and if she had tried, she would have been instantly discovered through the enmity of her very being to the lie she told; from her lips it would have been as transparent as the truth.  It is no wonder therefore that she felt relieved when first she heard of the durance in which Faber was lying.  But she felt equal to the withholding from Juliet of the knowledge of her husband’s condition for the present.  She judged that, seeing she had saved her friend’s life, she had some right to think and choose for the preservation of that life.

Meantime she must beware of security, and cultivate caution; and so successful was she, that weeks passed, and not a single doubt associated Dorothy with knowledge where others desired to know.  Not even her father had a suspicion in the direction of the fact.  She knew he would one day approve both of what she did, and of her silence concerning it.  To tell him, thoroughly as he was to be trusted, would be to increase the risk; and besides, she had no right to reveal a woman’s secret to a man.

It was a great satisfaction, however, notwithstanding her dread of meeting him, to hear that Faber had at length returned to Glaston; for if he had gone away, how could they have ever known what to do?  For one thing, if he were beyond their knowledge, he might any day, in full confidence, go and marry again.

Her father not unfrequently accompanied her to the Old House, but Juliet and she had arranged such signals, and settled such understandings, that the simple man saw nothing, heard nothing, forefelt nothing.  Now and then a little pang would quaver through Dorothy’s bosom, when she caught sight of him peering down into the terrible dusk of the pool, or heard him utter some sympathetic hope for the future of poor Faber; but she comforted herself with the thought of how glad he would be when she was able to tell him all, and how he would laugh over the story of their precautions against himself.

Her chief anxiety was for Juliet’s health, even more for the sake of avoiding discovery, than for its own.  When the nights were warm she would sometimes take her out in the park, and every day, one time or another, would make her walk in the garden while she kept watch on the top of the steep slope.  Her father would sometimes remark to a friend how Dorothy’s love of solitude seemed to grow upon her; but the remark suggested nothing, and slowly Juliet was being forgotten at Glaston.