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Rh imagination had built up at White Gables, upon foundations that seemed so good to him.

He said, 'I don't know how to begin the apologies I have to make. There are no words to tell you how ashamed and disgraced I feel when I realize what a crude, cock-sure blundering at a conclusion my suspicion was. Yes, I suspected–you! I had almost forgotten that I was ever such a fool. Almost–not quite. Sometimes when I have been alone I have remembered that folly, and poured contempt on it. I have tried to imagine what the facts were. I have tried to excuse myself.'

She interrupted him quickly. 'What nonsense! Do be sensible, Mr. Trent. You had only seen me on two occasions in your life before you came to me with your solution of the mystery.' Again the quaint expression came and was gone. 'If you talk of folly, it really is folly for a man like you to pretend to a woman like me that I had innocence written all over me in large letters–so large that you couldn't believe very strong evidence against me after seeing me twice.'

'What do you mean by "a man like me"?' he demanded with a sort of fierceness. 'Do