That was his secret, then, THEIR secret: he had met the
girl in Paris and helped her in her straits--lent her money,
Anna vaguely conjectured--and she had fallen in love with
him, and on meeting him again had been suddenly overmastered
by her passion. Anna, dropping back into her sofa-corner,
sat staring these facts in the face.

The girl had been in a desperate plight--frightened,
penniless, outraged by what had happened, and not knowing
(with a woman like Mrs. Murrett) what fresh injury might
impend; and Darrow, meeting her in this distracted hour, had
pitied, counselled, been kind to her, with the fatal, the
inevitable result. There were the facts as Anna made them
out: that, at least, was their external aspect, was as much
of them as she had been suffered to see; and into the secret
intricacies they might cover she dared not yet project her
thoughts.

"I must believe him...I must believe him..." She kept on
repeating the words like a talisman. It was natural, after
all, that he should have behaved as he had: defended the
girl's piteous secret to the last. She too began to feel the
contagion of his pity--the stir, in her breast, of feelings
deeper and more native to her than the pains of jealousy.
From the security of her blessedness she longed to lean over
with compassionate hands...But Owen? What was Owen's part to
be? She owed herself first to him--she was bound to protect
him not only from all knowledge of the secret she had
surprised, but also--and chiefly!--from its consequences.