Suddenly through this welter of anger and despair a small, confused thought struggled up; it was so unexpected that she actually gasped: He hadn't quite lied to her! "There _was_ office business!" Some real-estate transfer must have been put through, because--"Mrs. Dale had moved"! In her relief, Eleanor burst into violent crying; he had not _entirely_ lied! To be sure, he didn't say that the woman whom he had gone "from the office" to see, the woman who rented the house, was Mrs. Dale; in that, he had not been frank; he kept the name back--but that was only a reserve! Only a harmless secrecy. There was nothing _wrong_ in renting a house to the Dale woman! As Eleanor said this to herself, it was as if cool water flowed over flame-licked flesh. Yes; he didn't talk to her as he did to Edith of business matters; he didn't tell her about real-estate transactions; but that didn't mean that the Dale woman was anything to him! She was crying hard, now; "He just isn't frank, that's all." She could bear _that_; it was cruel, but she could bear it! And it was a protection to Maurice, too; it saved him from the slur of being suspected. "Oh, I am ashamed to have suspected him!" she thought; "how dreadful in me! But I've proved that I was wrong." When she said that she knew, in a numb way, that after this she must not play with the dagger of an unbelieved suspicion. She recognized that this sort of thing may be a mental diversion--but it is dangerous. If she allowed herself to do it again, she might really be stabbed; she might lose the saving certainty that he had not lied to her--that he had only been "not frank."
Suddenly she remembered how unwilling he had been, years ago, to talk of the creature to her! She smiled faintly at his foolishness. Perhaps he didn't want to talk of her now? Men are so absurd about their wives! Her heart thrilled at such precious absurdity. As for seeing that doctor--of course she wouldn't see him! She didn't _need_ to see him. And, anyhow, she wouldn't, for anything in the world, have him, or anybody else, suppose that she had had even a thought that Maurice wasn't--all right! "He just wasn't quite frank; that was all." ... Oh, she had been wicked to suspect him! "He would never forgive me if he knew I had thought of such a thing, He must never know it."