Page:Edgar Wallace - The Man who Knew.djvu/300

 "I was rather hurt at your not calling before, Frank," she said. "You have come to congratulate me?"

She looked at him straight in the eyes as she said this.

"You can hardly expect that, May," he said gently, "knowing how much you are to me and how greatly I wanted you. Honestly, I cannot understand it, and I can only suppose that you, whom I love better than anything in the world—and you mean more to me than any other being—share the suspicion which surrounds me like a poison cloud."

"Yet if I shared that suspicion," she said calmly, "would I let you see me? No, Frank, I was a child when—you know. It was only a few months ago, but I believe—indeed I know—it would have been the greatest mistake I could possibly have made. I should have been a very unhappy woman, for I have loved Jasper all along."

She said this evenly, without any display of emotion or embarrassment. Frank, narrating