She coloured at this and for a moment her answer failed; her eyes
embraced everything in the place, and a strange irony reached her
lips as she echoed: "Knew him?"

Then Stransom understood, while the room heaved like the cabin of a
ship, that its whole contents cried out with him, that it was a
museum in his honour, that all her later years had been addressed
to him and that the shrine he himself had reared had been
passionately converted to this use. It was all for Acton Hague
that she had kneeled every day at his altar. What need had there
been for a consecrated candle when he was present in the whole
array? The revelation so smote our friend in the face that he
dropped into a seat and sat silent. He had quickly felt her shaken
by the force of his shock, but as she sank on the sofa beside him
and laid her hand on his arm he knew almost as soon that she
mightn't resent it as much as she'd have liked.



CHAPTER VII.



He learned in that instant two things: one being that even in so
long a time she had gathered no knowledge of his great intimacy and
his great quarrel; the other that in spite of this ignorance,
strangely enough, she supplied on the spot a reason for his stupor.
"How extraordinary," he presently exclaimed, "that we should never
have known!"