"
It was a desperate moment with Paul, but his sympathetic instincts,
and possibly his luck, triumphed. His momentary hesitation easily
simulated the caution of a conscientious man; his knit eyebrows and
bright eyes, lowered in an effort of memory, did the rest. "I
remember it all so indistinctly," he said, with literal
truthfulness; "there was a veiled lady present, tall and dark, to
whom Mayor Hammersley and the colonel showed a singular, and, it
struck me, as an almost superstitious, respect. I remember now,
distinctly, I was impressed with the reverential way they both
accompanied her to the door at the end of the interview." He
raised his eyes slightly; the young girl's red lips were parted;
that illumination of the skin, which was her nearest approach to
color, had quite transfigured her face. He felt, suddenly, that
she believed it, yet he had no sense of remorse. He half believed
it himself; at least, he remembered the nobility of the mother's
self-renunciation and its effect upon the two men. Why should not
the daughter preserve this truthful picture of her mother's
momentary exaltation? Which was the most truthful--that, or the
degrading facts? "You speak of a secret," he added.
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