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“Then,” said Gilbert, laying hold of the one solid fact that loomed out of the mist of his confused understanding, “why did she keep on writing letters to me after she was married?”

“She never wrote to you at all. It was I that wrote the letters.”

Gilbert looked at Alma doubtfully. Was she crazy? There was something odd about her, now that he noticed, as she stood rigidly there, with that queer red spot on her face, a strange fire in her eyes, and that weird reflection from the maple enveloping her like an immaterial flame.

“I don’t understand,” he said helplessly.

Still standing there, Alma told the whole story, giving full explanations, but no excuses. She told it clearly and simply, for she had often pictured this scene to herself and thought out what she must say. Her memory worked automatically, and her tongue obeyed it promptly. To herself she seemed like a machine, talking mechanically, while her soul stood on one side and listened.

When she had finished there was a silence lasting perhaps ten seconds. To Alma it seemed like hours. Would Gilbert overwhelm her with angry reproaches, or would he simply rise up and leave her in unutterable contempt? It was the most tragic moment of her life, and her whole personality was strung up to meet it and withstand it.

“Well, they were good letters, anyhow,” said Gilbert finally; “interesting letters,” he added, as if by way of a meditative afterthought.

It was so anti-climactic that Alma broke into an hysterical giggle, cut short by a sob. She dropped into a chair by the table and flung her hands over her face, laughing and sobbing softly to herself. Gilbert rose and walked to the door, where he stood with his back to her until she regained her self-control. Then he turned and looked down at her quizzically.

Alma’s hands lay limply in her lap, and her eyes were cast down, with tears glistening on the long fair lashes. She felt his gaze on her.

“Can you ever forgive me, Gilbert?” she said humbly.

“I don’t know that there is much to forgive,” he answered. “I have some explanations to make too and, since we’re at it, we might as well get them all over and have done with them. Two years ago I did honestly think I was in love with Anna–at least when I was round where she was. She had a taking way with her. But, somehow, even then, when I wasn’t with her she seemed to kind of grow dim and not count for so awful much after all. I used to wish she was more like you–quieter, you know, and not so sparkling. When I parted from her that last night before I went west, I did feel very bad, and she seemed very dear to me, but it was six weeks from that before her–your–letter came, and in that time she seemed to have faded out of my thoughts. Honestly, I wasn’t thinking much about her at all. Then came the letter–and it was a splendid one, too. I had never thought that Anna could write a letter like that, and I was as pleased as Punch about it. The letters kept coming, and I kept on looking for them more and more all the time. I fell in love all over again–with the writer of those letters. I thought it was Anna, but since you wrote the letters, it must have been with you, Alma. I thought it was because she was growing more womanly that she could write such letters. That was why I came home. I wanted to get acquainted all over again, before she grew beyond me altogether–I wanted to find the real Anna the letters showed me. I–I–didn’t expect this. But I don’t care if Anna is married, so long as the girl who wrote those letters isn’t. It’s you I love, Alma.”

He bent down and put his arm about her, laying his cheek against hers. The little red spot where his kiss had fallen was now quite drowned out in the colour that rushed over her face.

“If you’ll marry me, Alma, I’ll forgive you,” he said.

A little smile escaped from the duress of Alma’s lips and twitched her dimples.

“I’m willing to do anything that will win your forgiveness, Gilbert,” she said meekly.