But I believe in you--I should believe in you if every one doubted; for there is no feeling in me that says, 'He has done some wicked thing that stands-between us.' It isn't the same as with Portugais, you see--naturally, it could not be the same." She seemed not to realise that she was telling more of her own heart than she had ever told.

It was a revelation, having its origin in an honesty which impelled a pure outspokenness to himself.

Reserve, of course, there had been elsewhere, for did not she hold a secret with him?
Had she not hidden things, equivocated else where?
Yet it had been at his wish, to protect the name of a dead man, for the repose of whose soul masses were now said, with expensive candles burning.

For this she had no repentance; she was without logic where this man's good was at stake.
Charley had before him a problem, which he now knew he never could evade in the future.

He could solve it by none of the old intellectual means, but by the use of new faculties, slowly emerging from the unexplored fastnesses of his nature.
"Why should you believe in me ?" he asked, forcing himself to smile, yet acutely alive to the fact that a crisis was impending.