“If, in your close intimacy with them, it seems strange that they should never have betrayed themselves, let me ask you to consider the circumstances and you will understand the apparent anomaly.  Remember that they had been living as husband and wife, to all intents and purposes (except that the marriage-service had not been read over them), for fifteen years before you came into the house; and bear in mind, at the same time, that no event occurred to disturb Mr. Vanstone’s happiness in the present, to remind him of the past, or to warn him of the future, until the announcement of his wife’s death reached him, in that letter from America which you saw placed in his hand.  From that day forth—­when a past which he abhorred was forced back to his memory; when a future which she had never dared to anticipate was placed within her reach—­you will soon perceive, if you have not perceived already, that they both betrayed themselves, time after time; and that you r innocence of all suspicion, and their children’s innocence of all suspicion, alone prevented you from discovering the truth.

“The sad story of the past is now as well known to you as to me.  I have had hard words to speak.  God knows I have spoken them with true sympathy for the living, with true tenderness for the memory of the dead.”

He paused, turned his face a little away, and rested his head on his hand, in the quiet, undemonstrative manner which was natural to him.  Thus far, Miss Garth had only interrupted his narrative by an occasional word or by a mute token of her attention.  She made no effort to conceal her tears; they fell fast and silently over her wasted cheeks, as she looked up and spoke to him.  “I have done you some injury, sir, in my thoughts,” she said, with a noble simplicity.  “I know you better now.  Let me ask your forgiveness; let me take your hand.”

Those words, and the action which accompanied them, touched him deeply.  He took her hand in silence.  She was the first to speak, the first to set the example of self-control.  It is one of the noble instincts of women that nothing more powerfully rouses them to struggle with their own sorrow than the sight of a man’s distress.  She quietly dried her tears; she quietly drew her chair round the table, so as to sit nearer to him when she spoke again.

“I have been sadly broken, Mr. Pendril, by what has happened in this house,” she said, “or I should have borne what you have told me better than I have borne it to-day.  Will you let me ask one question before you go on?  My heart aches for the children of my love—­more than ever my children now.  Is there no hope for their future?  Are they left with no prospect but poverty before them?”

The lawyer hesitated before he answered the question.

“They are left dependent,” he said, at last, “on the justice and the mercy of a stranger.”

“Through the misfortune of their birth?”