She took the right side of everything; her wisdom was full of tenderness; she never once gave utterance to a thought or sentence but that I was both pleased and struck with it.

But for this haunting suspicion I should have pronounced her a perfect woman, for I could see no fault in her.

I had been a fortnight at Dutton Manor, and but for this it would have been a very happy fortnight.

Lance and I had fallen into old loving terms of intimacy, and Frances made a most lovable and harmonious third.

A whole fortnight I had studied her, criticised her, and was more bewildered than ever--more sure of two things: The first was that it was next to impossible that she had ever been anything different to what she was now; the second, that she must be the woman I had seen on the pier.
What, under those circumstances, was any man to do?
No single incident had happened to interrupt the tranquil course of life, but from day to day I grew more wretched with the weight of my miserable secret.
One afternoon, I remember that the lilacs were all in bloom, and Lance sat with his beautiful wife where a great group of trees stood.