to tell you!—­I’ve been sure, since it explains.  Nothing has passed between them—­that’s what has happened.  It explains,” the Princess repeated with energy; “it explains, it explains!” She spoke in a manner that her auditor was afterwards to describe to the Colonel, oddly enough, as that of the quietest excitement; she had turned back to the chimney-place, where, in honour of a damp day and a chill night, the piled logs had turned to flame and sunk to embers; and the evident intensity of her vision for the fact she imparted made Fanny Assingham wait upon her words.  It explained, this striking fact, more indeed than her companion, though conscious of fairly gaping with good-will, could swallow at once.  The Princess, however, as for indulgence and confidence, quickly filled up the measure.  “He hasn’t let her know that I know—­and, clearly, doesn’t mean to.  He has made up his mind; he’ll say nothing about it.  Therefore, as she’s quite unable to arrive at the knowledge by herself, she has no idea how much I’m really in possession.  She believes,” said Maggie, “and, so far as her own conviction goes, she knows, that I’m not in possession of anything.  And that, somehow, for my own help seems to me immense.”

“Immense, my dear!” Mrs. Assingham applausively murmured, though not quite, even as yet, seeing all the way.  “He’s keeping quiet then on purpose?”

“On purpose.”  Maggie’s lighted eyes, at least, looked further than they had ever looked.  “He’ll never tell her now.”

Fanny wondered; she cast about her; most of all she admired her little friend, in whom this announcement was evidently animated by an heroic lucidity.  She stood there, in her full uniform, like some small erect commander of a siege, an anxious captain who has suddenly got news, replete with importance for him, of agitation, of division within the place.  This importance breathed upon her comrade.  “So you’re all right?”

“Oh, all right’s a good deal to say.  But I seem at least to see, as I haven’t before, where I am with it.”

Fanny bountifully brooded; there was a point left vague.  “And you have it from him?—­your husband himself has told you?”

“‘Told’ me—?”

“Why, what you speak of.  It isn’t of an assurance received from him then that you do speak?”

At which Maggie had continued to stare.  “Dear me, no.  Do you suppose I’ve asked him for an assurance?”

“Ah, you haven’t?” Her companion smiled.  “That’s what I supposed you might mean.  Then, darling, what have you—?”

“Asked him for?  I’ve asked him for nothing.”

But this, in turn, made Fanny stare.  “Then nothing, that evening of the Embassy dinner, passed between you?”

“On the contrary, everything passed.”

“Everything—?”

“Everything.  I told him what I knew—­and I told him how I knew it.”

Mrs. Assingham waited.  “And that was all?”