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 Sears Ripley of Concord.' She turned her face in against his shoulder. 'Do you want me to tell you now?'

'Yes, but with your face so out of sight, how can I tell whether or not you are telling me the exact truth?' Professor Ripley long ago had discovered that Lanice could, very politely, prevaricate on occasion.

If she told him that Anthony Jones had carelessly possessed and abandoned her, would he ever trust her again? And this belief, she knew, would always hurt him, always ache far down like an incurable open wound deep in his consciousness. He would forgive her and would love her, but she loved him too much to wish to cause him pain. If she told him that Anthony's wild courtship had stopped short of actual possession, he would, she believed, feel too overwhelming a sense of his own right over her. She would never again have any little secret spot, either in her soul or her past, into which she could retreat. Through the most intricate films and fibres of her being he would gaze with clear, comprehending eyes.

'If I had found him at Winchester, then I would have...sinned in body as well as soul. But I was too late. Before God, I must be as guilty, however, as if what I really in my wicked heart...had hoped...' Ripley unaccountably began to laugh.

'Your only wickedness has been in not telling me before,' he exclaimed, 'but of course I always knew. Who but a woman, and a very good one, would consider herself as guilty of a mental crime as of a physical one? Lanice, look at me.'