"You understand," he said at last, "my only object in trying to put you off was to protect her memory—not that it needed protection, but only from misrepresentation."

"I understood that from the beginning," said my mistress.

"It is true that I was in love with her," he went on. "Since many years ago. Almost from the time that Whittall first brought her home. We called her St. Cecilia. I watched her once cutting roses in her garden, when she didn't know anybody was near. At first it didn't

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