TH

CHAPTER XL

HEY had come back. They had spent their first evening together in the house in Prior Street. Anne had dreaded the return; for the house remembered its sad secrets. She had dreaded it more on her husband's account than on her own.

She had passed before him through the doorway of the study; and her heart had ached as she thought that it was in that room that she had struck at him and put him from her. As he entered, she had turned, and closed the door behind them, and lifted her face to his and kissed him. He had looked at her with his kind, sad smile, but he had said nothing. All that evening they had sat by their hearth, silent as watchers by the dead.

From time to time she had been aware of his eyes resting on her in their profound and tragic scrutiny. She had been reminded then of the things that yet remained unsaid.

At night he had risen at her signal; and she had waited while he put the light out; and he had followed her upstairs. At her door she had stopped, and kissed him, and said good-night, and she had turned her head to look after him as he went. Surely, she had thought, he will come back and speak to me.

And now she was still waiting after her undressing. She said to herself, "We have come home. But he will not come to me. He has nothing to say to me.

There is nothing that can be said. If I could only speak to him."

She longed to go to him, to kneel at his feet and beg him to forgive her and take her back again; as if it had been she who had sinned. But she could not.

She stood for a moment before the couch at the foot of the bed, ready to slip off her long white dressinggown. She paused. Her eyes rested on the silver crucifix, the beloved symbol of redemption. She remembered how he had given it to her. She had not understood him even then; but she understood him now. She longed to tell him that she understood. But she could

not.

She turned suddenly as she heard his low knock at her door. She had been afraid to hear it once; now it made her heart beat hard with longing and another fear. He came in. He stood by the closed door, gazing at her with the dumb look that she knew.

She went to meet him, with her hands outstretched to him, her face glowing.

"Oh, my dear," she said, "you've come back to me. You've come back."

He looked down on her with miserable eyes. She put her arms about him. His face darkened and was stern to her. He held her by her arms and put her from him, and she trembled in all her body, humiliated and rebuked.

"No. Not that," he said. "Not now. I can't ask you to take me back now."

"Need you ask me-now?"

"You don't understand," he said. "You don't know. Darling, you don't know."

At the word of love she turned to him, beseeching him with her tender eyes.

"Sit down," he said. "I want to talk to you."

She sat down on the couch, and made room for him beside her.

"I don't want," she said, "to know more than I do."

"I'm afraid you must know. When you do know you won't talk about taking me back."

"I have taken you back."

"Not yet. I'd no business to come back at all, without telling you."

"Tell me, then," she said.

"I can't. I don't know how."

She put her hand on his.

"Don't," he said, "don't. I'd rather you didn't touch me."

She looked at him and smiled, and her smile cut him to the heart.

"Walter," she said, "are you afraid of me?" "Yes."

"You needn't be."

"I am. I'm afraid of your goodness.'

She smiled again.

"Do you think I'm good?"

"I know you are."

"You don't know how you're hurting me."

"I've always hurt you. And I'm going to hurt you more."

"You only hurt me when you talk about my goodness. I'm not good. I never was. And I never can be, dear, if you're afraid of me. What is it that I must know?”

His voice sank.

"I've been unfaithful to you. Again."

"With whom?" she whispered.

"I can't tell you. Only-it wasn't Maggie." "When was it?"

"I think it was that Sunday-at Scarby."

"Why do you say you think?" she said gently. "Don't you know?"

"No. I don't know much about it. I didn't know what I was doing."

I don't know. That's the horri

"Yes. I think so. I don't know.

ble part of it. I don't know. I can't remember anything about it. I must have been drinking."

She took his hand in hers again. "Walter, dear, don't think about it. Don't think it was possible. Just put it all out of your head and forget about it."

"How can I when I don't know?" He rose. "See here I oughtn't to look at you-I oughtn't to touch you -I oughtn't to live with you, as long as I don't know. You don't know, either."

"No," she said quietly. "I don't know. Does that matter so very much when I understand?"

"Ah, if you could understand. could."

But you never

"I do. Supposing I had known, do you think I should not have forgiven you?"

"I'm certain you wouldn't. You couldn't. Not that." "But," she said, "I did know."

His mouth twitched. His eyelids dropped before her gaze.

"At least," she said, "I thought—"

"You thought that?"

"Yes."

"What made you think it?"

"I saw her there."

"You saw her? You thought that, and yet-you would have let me come back to you?"

"Yes. I thought that."

As he stood before her, shamed, and uncertain, and unhappy, the new soul that had been born in her pleaded for him and assured her of his innocence.

"But," she said again, "I do not think it now." "You-you don't believe it?"

"No. I believe in you."

"You believe in me? After everything?"

"After everything."

"And you would have forgiven me that?"

"I did forgive you. I forgave you all the time I thought it. There's nothing that I wouldn't forgive you now. You know it."

"I thought you might forgive me. But I never thought you'd let me come back-after that."

"You haven't. You haven't. You never left me. It's I who have come back to you."

"Nancy” he whispered.

"It's I who need forgiveness. Forgive me. Forgive me."

"Forgive you? You?"

"Yes, me."

Her voice died and rose again, throbbing to her confession.

"I was unfaithful to you."

"You don't know what you're saying, dear. You couldn't have been unfaithful to me."