"I remember it all so indistinctly," he said, with literal truthfulness; "there was a veiled lady present, tall and dark, to whom Mayor Hammersley and the colonel showed a singular, and, it struck me, as an almost superstitious, respect.

I remember now, distinctly, I was impressed with the reverential way they both accompanied her to the door at the end of the interview." He raised his eyes slightly; the young girl's red lips were parted; that illumination of the skin, which was her nearest approach to color, had quite transfigured her face.

He felt, suddenly, that she believed it, yet he had no sense of remorse.

He half believed it himself; at least, he remembered the nobility of the mother's self-renunciation and its effect upon the two men.

Why should not the daughter preserve this truthful picture of her mother's momentary exaltation?
Which was the most truthful--that, or the degrading facts?
"You speak of a secret," he added.