? ? ? ? "I had sat for about twenty minutes turning the thing over in my mind and trying to find some possible explanation. The more I thought, the more extraordinary and inexplicable did it appear. I was still puzzling over it when I heard the door gently close again, and her footsteps coming up the stairs.
? ? ? ? " 'Where in the world have you been, Effie?' I asked as she entered.
? ? ? ? "She gave a violent start and a kind of gasping cry when I spoke, and that cry and start troubled me more than all the rest, for there was something indescribably guilty about them. My wife had always been a woman of a frank, open nature, and it gave me a chill to see her slinking into her own room and crying out and wincing when her own husband spoke to her.
? ? ? ? " 'You awake, Jack!' she cried with a nervous laugh. 'Why, I thought that nothing could awake you.'
? ? ? ? " 'Where have you been?' I asked, more sternly.
? ? ? ? " 'I don't wonder that you are surprised,' said she, and I could see that her fingers were trembling as she undid the fastenings of her mantle.
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