"There--well--you have been very unkind, Archibald. Have we not been
friends--have we not been together from the first? How could you believe
that I could wish you any harm?"

"Ah, Kate, but you married him!"

"Well, sir, I as good as asked you to marry me first, and you would not do
it."

"You asked me!"

"Yes; you have forgotten. It has all been so strange, you see. I hardly
know, even now, whether you are the Archibald I used to know."

"But I know, very well," returned he, grimly. "And you are the wife of my
enemy, the man who is trying to ruin me. Kate," he broke off suddenly,
"how did Richard know that those papers were missing in our family? I told
you once--do you remember that day? And no one knew it except you."

Mrs. Pennroyal would perhaps have preferred not to be asked this question.
But since it was asked, she was bound to make the best answer she could.

"It was for that I wanted to see you to-day," she said, after a pause. "I
have been to blame, Archibald; but it was ignorantly. It was long
ago--before all these troubles began to occur: while we were yet on good
terms. Ah me! would we were so again!"

"You told him, then?"