"And you never said so at the inquest!" I cried, indignant.

He looked at me hard again. Then he spoke in a very slow and earnest
voice:

"For your sake, Una, and for the sake of your affections, I held my
peace," he said. "My dear, the suspicion was but a very slender one:
I had nothing to go upon. And why should I have tried to destroy
your happiness?"

That horrible article in the penny Society paper came back to my
mind once more with hideous suggestiveness. I turned to him almost
fiercely.

"So far as you know, Dr. Marten," I asked, "was I ever in love? Had
I ever an admirer? Was I ever engaged to anyone?"

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled a sort of smile of relief.

"How should I know?" he answered. "Admirers?--yes, dozens of them;
I was one myself. Lovers?--who can say? But I advise you not to
push the inquiry further."

I questioned him some minutes longer, but could get nothing more
from him. Then I rose to go.

"Dr. Marten," I said firmly, "if I remember all, and if it wrings my
heart to remember, I tell you I will give up that man to justice all
the same! I think I know myself well enough to know this much at
least, that I never, never could stoop either to love or to screen a