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Rh "I am prepared," Judith assured him calmly.

"You couldn't be. It's the most amazing thing imaginable. … See here …"

"Well?"

"You understand, don't you, that Alan must never know that Rose was killed by that lightning stroke?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean"—the man floundered miserably—"you see, he loved her so—I thought—I'm sure it would be best—if you can bring yourself to it—to let him go on believing it wasn't Rose who was killed, but Judith. And that's skating so close to the truth that it makes no difference: the Judith Alan knew and the Judith I knew in the beginning is gone as completely as though she and not Rose had been killed."

After a long pause, the girl asked him quietly: "I understand. But don't you see that, if I were to consent to this—lend myself to a deception which I must maintain through all my life to come—Alan would consider me his wife?" "Well, but—you see—you are his wife. … Oh, don't think I'm off my bat: I'm telling you the plain, unvarnished truth. You are Alan's wife. … You remember that day in New York when you substituted for Rose, when Alan tried to elope with her, and you went with him to Jersey City, and stood up to be married by a preacher-guy named