“It didn’t show, dear.”

“I didn’t mean it to.  It wouldn’t have been pretty.  And now, it’s all over and I like Anne.  But I don’t like her as much as you.”

“You must like her more,” he said gravely.  “She’ll need it—­badly.”

Edith looked at him.  “How can she need it badly, when she has you?”

“You’re a good woman, and I’m a mere mortal man.  She’s found that out already, and she doesn’t like it.”

“Wallie, dear, what do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I say.  She’s found it out.  She’s found me out.  She’s found everything out.”

“Found out?  But how?”

“It doesn’t matter how.  Edie, why didn’t you tell her?  You said you would.”

“Yes—­I said I would.”

“And you told me you had.”

“No.  I didn’t tell you I had.”

“What did you tell me, then?”

“I told you there was nothing to be afraid of, that it was all right.”

“And of course I thought you’d told her.”

“If I had told her it wouldn’t have been all right; for she wouldn’t have married you.”

Majendie scowled, and Edith went on calmly.

“I knew that—­she as good as told me so—­and I knew her.”

“Well—­what if she hadn’t married me?”

“That would have been very bad for both of you.  Especially for you.”

“For me?  And how do you know this isn’t going to be worse?  For both of us.  It’s generally better to be straight, and face facts, however disagreeable.  Especially when everybody knows that you’ve got a skeleton in your cupboard.”

“Anne didn’t, and she was so afraid of skeletons.”

“All the more reason why you should have hauled the horrid thing out and let her have a good look at it.  She mightn’t have been afraid of it then.  Now she’s convinced it’s a fifty times worse skeleton than it is.”

“She wouldn’t have lived with it in the house, dear.  She said so.”

“But I thought you never told her?”

“She was talking about somebody else’s skeleton, dear.”

“Oh, somebody else’s, that’s a very different thing.”

“She meant—­if she’d been the woman.  I was testing her, to see how she’d take it.  Do you think I was very wrong?”

“Well, frankly, dear, I cannot say you were very wise.”

“I wonder——­”

She lay back wondering.  Doubt of her wisdom shook her through all her tender being.  She had been so sure.

“How would you have liked it,” said she, “if Anne had given you up and gone away, and you’d never seen her again?”

His face said plainly that he wouldn’t have liked it at all.

“Well, that’s what she’d have done.  And I wanted her to stay and marry you.”

“Yes, but with her eyes open.”

She shook her head, the head that would have been so wise for him.

“No,” said she.  “Anne’s one of those people who see best with their eyes shut.”