"
"You mean faith in me?"
"Even more than that; love for you. Natalie, listen; what I have to say
may sound strange, cruel even under such conditions as now surround us,
but you force me to say them. I love you, have loved you all the time,
without fully realizing exactly what it meant. There have been times when
I have doubted you, when I could not wholly escape the evidence that you
were also concerned personally in this fraud. I have endeavoured to
withdraw from the case, to forget, and blot everything from memory. But
something stronger than will prevented; I could not desert you; could not
believe you were wilfully wrong. You understand what I mean."
"Yes," the words barely reaching him. "It was the other girl; she
undermined your faith."
"That is the truth; yet how could it be, do you suppose? My very love
should have enabled me to detect the difference. I can see now, thinking
back, where the fraud was even apparent--in mood, temper, action--and yet
at the time these made no such impression. Even Sexton never questioned
her identity; in face, figure, dress the resemblance was absolutely
perfect. Good heavens, but she is an actress!"
She touched his arm with her hand, and under the slight pressure he
looked aside at her.
"You know now," she said softly, "and I know. All this is passed and gone
between us. We are here alone, the sport of the waves, and I have no
reason to be other than frank.
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