“It is false!” said Bernard stoutly.  “It’s a foul lie of the devil’s own concocting!  How long have you known of this?  Who was vile enough to tell you?”

“You knew?” she whispered.

“I never heard the thing put into words but I had my own suspicions of what was going about,” he admitted.  “But I never believed it.  Nothing on this earth would induce me to believe it.  You don’t believe it, either, child.  You know him better than that.”

She hid her face from him with a smothered sob.  “I thought I did—­once.”

“You did,” he asserted staunchly.  “You do!  Don’t tell me otherwise, for I shan’t believe you if you do!  What kind friend told you?  I want to know.”

“Oh, it was only little Tessa.  You mustn’t blame her.  She was full of indignation, poor child.  Her mother taunted her with it.  You know—­or perhaps you don’t know—­what Netta Ermsted is.”

Bernard’s face was very grim as he made reply.  “I think I can guess.  But you are not going to be poisoned by her venom.  Why don’t you tell Everard, have it out with him?  Say you don’t believe it, but it hurts you to hear a damnable slander like this and not be able to refute it!  You are not afraid of him, Stella?  Surely you are not afraid of him!”

But Stella only hid her face a little lower, and spoke no word.

He laid his hand upon her as she sat.  “What does that mean?” he said.  “Isn’t your love equal to the strain?”

She shook her head dumbly.  She could not meet his look.

“What?” he said.  “Is my love greater than yours then?  I would trust his honour even to the gallows, if need be.  Can’t you say as much?”

She answered him with her head bowed, her words barely audible.  “It isn’t a question of love.  I—­should always love him—­whatever he did.”

“Ah!” The flicker of a smile crossed Bernard’s face.  “That is the woman’s way.  There’s a good deal to be said for it, I daresay.”

“Yes—­yes.”  Quiveringly she made answer.  “But—­if this thing were true—­my love would have to be sacrificed, even—­even though it would mean tearing out my very heart.  I couldn’t go on—­with him.  I couldn’t—­possibly.”

Her words trembled into silence, and the light died out of Bernard’s eyes.  “I see,” he said slowly.  “But, my dear, I can’t understand how you—­loving him as you do—­can allow for a moment, even in your most secret heart, that such a thing as this could be true.  That is where you begin to go wrong.  That is what does the harm.”

She looked up at last, and the despair in her eyes went straight to his heart.  “I have always felt there was—­something,” she said.  “I can’t tell you exactly how.  But it has always been there.  I tried hard not to love him—­not to marry him.  But it was no use.  He mastered me with his love.  But I always knew—­I always knew—­that there was something hidden which I might not see.  I have caught sight of it a dozen times, but I have never really seen it.”  She suppressed a quick shudder.  “I have been afraid of it, and—­I have always looked the other way.”