worshiped was a murderess? What else she had been, I did not care even
to think; whose child it was, or why she had drowned it, I could not,
dare not think.

I could not sleep or rest; my mind and brain were at variance with
themselves. Frances Fleming seemed to me a fair, kind-hearted, loving,
woman, graceful as fair; the woman I had seen on the Chain Pier was a
wild, desperate creature, capable of anything. I could not rest; the
soft bed of eiderdown, the sheets of pure linen perfumed with lavender,
the pillows, soft as though filled with down from the wings of a bird,
could bring no rest to me.

If this woman were anything but what she seemed to be, if she were
indeed a murderess, how dare she deceive Lance Fleming? Was it right,
just or fair that he should give the love of his honest heart, the
devotion of his life, to a woman who ought to have been branded? I
wished a thousand times over that I had never seen the Chain Pier, or
that I had never come to Dutton Manor House; yet it might be that I was
the humble instrument intended by Providence to bring to light a great
crime. It seemed strange that of all nights in the year I should have
chosen that one; it seemed strange that after keeping the woman's face
living in my memory for so long I should so suddenly meet it in life.
There was something more than mere coincidence in this; yet it seemed a
horrible thing to do, to come under the roof of my dearest friend and
ruin his happiness forever.

Then the question came--was it not better for him to know the truth than
to live in a fool's paradise--to take to his heart a murderess--to live
befooled and die deceived? My heart rose in hot indignation against the
woman who had blighted his life, who would bring home to him such shame