“Don’t ask me about mother,” she went on.  “I’d rather talk of Mrs. Clements.  Mrs. Clements is like you, she doesn’t think that I ought to be back in the Asylum, and she is as glad as you are that I escaped from it.  She cried over my misfortune, and said it must be kept secret from everybody.”

Her “misfortune.”  In what sense was she using that word?  In a sense which might explain her motive in writing the anonymous letter?  In a sense which might show it to be the too common and too customary motive that has led many a woman to interpose anonymous hindrances to the marriage of the man who has ruined her?  I resolved to attempt the clearing up of this doubt before more words passed between us on either side.

“What misfortune?” I asked.

“The misfortune of my being shut up,” she answered, with every appearance of feeling surprised at my question.  “What other misfortune could there be?”

I determined to persist, as delicately and forbearingly as possible.  It was of very great importance that I should be absolutely sure of every step in the investigation which I now gained in advance.

“There is another misfortune,” I said, “to which a woman may be liable, and by which she may suffer lifelong sorrow and shame.”

“What is it?” she asked eagerly.

“The misfortune of believing too innocently in her own virtue, and in the faith and honour of the man she loves,” I answered.

She looked up at me with the artless bewilderment of a child.  Not the slightest confusion or change of colour—­not the faintest trace of any secret consciousness of shame struggling to the surface appeared in her face—­that face which betrayed every other emotion with such transparent clearness.  No words that ever were spoken could have assured me, as her look and manner now assured me, that the motive which I had assigned for her writing the letter and sending it to Miss Fairlie was plainly and distinctly the wrong one.  That doubt, at any rate, was now set at rest; but the very removal of it opened a new prospect of uncertainty.  The letter, as I knew from positive testimony, pointed at Sir Percival Glyde, though it did not name him.  She must have had some strong motive, originating in some deep sense of injury, for secretly denouncing him to Miss Fairlie in such terms as she had employed, and that motive was unquestionably not to be traced to the loss of her innocence and her character.  Whatever wrong he might have inflicted on her was not of that nature.  Of what nature could it be?

“I don’t understand you,” she said, after evidently trying hard, and trying in vain, to discover the meaning of the words I had last said to her.

“Never mind,” I answered.  “Let us go on with what we were talking about.  Tell me how long you stayed with Mrs. Clements in London, and how you came here.”

“How long?” she repeated.  “I stayed with Mrs. Clements till we both came to this place, two days ago.”