Down on her knees, in self-abasement, the tears of contrition raining from her eyes, her face scarlet in its agony of shame, cowered Lucy Andinnian at her husband\'s feet. She would not let him raise her. It seemed to her that a whole lifetime of repentance could never wash out her sin.

The elucidation of the misunderstanding that had kept them apart for months was taking place.

On the day after the funeral, Karl sought his wife in the dressing-room to tell her of what had occurred. She had scarcely spoken a word to him since her return, or allowed him to speak one to her. Very briefly, in half a dozen words, he informed her his brother was dead, and delivered the message Adam had left for her. For a few minutes Lucy\'s bewilderment was utter; and, when she did at length grasp somewhat of the truth, her confusion and distress were pitiable.

"Oh, Karl, Karl, do you think you will ever be able to forgive me? What can I do?--what can I do to atone for it?"

"You must get up, Lucy, before I say whether I forgive you or not."

"I cannot get up. It seems to me that I ought never to get up again. Your brother at the Maze!--your brother\'s wife! Oh, what must you have thought of my conduct? Oh, Karl, why do you not strike me as I lie?"

Sir Karl put forth his arms and his strength, and raised her to the sofa. She bent her face down on its pillow, to weep out her tears of shame.

"Come, Lucy," he said, when he had waited a few minutes, sitting beside her. "We shall not arrive at the end in this way. Is it possible that you did not know my brother was alive?"

"How could I know it, Karl?" she asked, amid her streaming tears. "How was I likely to know it?"

"You told me you knew it. You said to me that you had discovered the secret at the Maze. I thought you were resenting the fact of his being alive. Or, rather, of my having married you, knowing that he was."

"Why should I resent it? How could you think, so? Was that the secret you spoke of in Paris the night before our wedding?--that Adam was alive."

"That, and no other. But I did not know then that he was married--or suspect that he ever would marry. I learnt that fact only during my mother\'s last illness."

"Oh, Karl, this is dreadful," she sobbed. "What must you have thought of me all this time? I almost wish I could die!"

"You still care for me, then; a little?"

With a burst of anguish she turned and hid her face upon his breast. "I have only loved you the better all the while," she whispered.

"Lucy, my dear, I say we shall not get to the end in this way. Look up. If you were in ignorance of my brother\'s existence, and of all the complications for you and for me that it involved, what then was it that you were resenting?"

"Don\'t ask me, Karl," she said, her face growing scarlet again. "I could not tell you for the very shame."

He drew a little away, making a movement to put her from him. Never had his countenance been so stern to her as it was now; never could he be so little trifled with.

"If there is to be an explanation between us, Lucy, it must be full and complete. I insist upon its being so. If you refuse to give it now--why, I shall never ask you for it again. Do you not think you owe me one?"

Again she bent her face upon him. "I owe you everything, Karl; I owe you more reparation than I can ever pay. Never, as long as our lives shall last, will I have a secret from you again, heaven helping me. If I hesitate to tell you this, it is because I am ashamed for you to know how foolish I could be, and the wicked thoughts I could have."

"Not more foolish or wicked, I dare say, than I was for making you my wife. Speak out, Lucy. It must be so, you see, if there is to be a renewal of peace between us."

Keeping her head where it was, her face hidden from him, Lucy whispered her confession. Karl started from her in very astonishment.

"Lucy! You could think that! Of me!"

She put up her hands beseechingly. "Oh, forgive me, Karl; for the sake of the pain, forgive me! It has been killing me all the while. See how worn and thin I am."

He put his arm out and drew her to his side. "Go on, my dear. How did you pick up the notion?"

"It was Theresa." And now that the ice was broken, anxious to tell all and clear herself, Lucy described the past in full: the cruel anguish she had battled with, and her poor, ever-to-be renewed efforts to endure patiently, for his sake and for God\'s. Karl\'s arm involuntarily tightened around her.

"Why did you not speak to me of this at once, Lucy?" he asked, after a pause. "It would have cleared it up, you see."

"I did speak to you, Karl; and you seemed to understand me perfectly, and to accept it all as truth. You must remember your agitation, and how you begged me not to let it come to an exposure."

"But I thought you alluded to the trouble about my poor brother; that it was the fact of his being alive you had discovered and were resenting. That was the exposure I dreaded. And no wonder: for, if it had come, it would have sent him back to Portland Island."

Lucy wrung her hands. "What a miserable misapprehension it has been!--and how base and selfish and cruel I must have appeared to you! I wonder, Karl, you did not put me away from you for ever!"

"Will you go now?"

She knew it was asked in jest: she probably knew that neither would have parted from the other for the wealth of the world. And she nestled the least bit closer to him.

"Karl!"

"Well?"

"Why did you not tell me about your brother when you found I knew nothing, and was resenting it. If I had but known the real truth, we never should have been at issue for a day."

"Remember, Lucy, that I thought it was what you knew, and spoke of. I thought you knew he was alive and was at the Maze with his wife. When I would have given you the whole history from the first, you stopped me and refused to hear. I wished to give it; that you might see I was less to blame than you seemed to be supposing. It has been a wretched play at cross-purposes on both sides: and neither of us, that I see, is to blame for it."

"Poor Sir Adam!" she cried, the tears again falling. "Living in that dreadful fear day after day! And what must his poor wife have suffered! And her baby dying, and now her husband! And I, instead of giving sympathy, have thought everything that was ill of her, and hated her and despised her. And Karl--why, Karl--she must have been the real Lady Andinnian."

He nodded. "Until Adam\'s death, I was not Sir Karl, you see. The day you came with her from Basham, and they told her the fly waiting at the station was for Lady Andinnian, she was stricken with terror, believing they meant herself."

"Oh, if I had known all this time!" bewailed Lucy. "Stuck up here in my false pride and folly, instead of helping you to shield them and to lighten their burthen! I cannot hope that you will ever quite forgive me in your heart, Karl."

"Had it been as I supposed it was, I am not quite sure that I should. Not quite, Lucy, even to our old age. You took it up so harshly and selfishly, looking at it from my point of view, and resented it in so extraordinary a fashion, so bitter a spirit----"

"Oh don\'t, don\'t!" she pleaded, slipping down to his feet again in the depth of her remorse, the old sense of shame on her burning cheeks. "Won\'t you be merciful to me? I have suffered much."

"Why, my darling, you are mistaking me again," he cried tenderly, as he once more raised her. "I said, \'Looking at it from my point of view.\' Looking at it from yours, Lucy, I am amazed at your gentle forbearance. Few young wives would............