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Presently he saw that Telford was gone. When he reached her, she was sitting, as he had often seen her, perfectly still, her hands folded in her lap upon her parasol, her features held in control, save that in her eyes was a bright, hot flame which so many have desired to see in the eyes of those they love and have not seen. The hunger of these is like the thirst of the people who waited for Moses to strike the rock.

He sat down without speaking. “He is gone,” he said at last.

“Yes. Look at me and tell me if, from my face, you would think I had been seeing dreadful things.” She smiled sadly at him.

“No, I could not think it. I see nothing more than a kind of sadness. The rest is all beauty.”

“Oh, hush!” she replied solemnly. “Do not say those things now.”

“I will not if you do not wish to hear them. What dreadful things have you seen?”

“You know so much you should know everything,” she said, “at least all of what may happen.”

Then she told him who Mildred Margrave was; how years before, when the girl’s mother was very ill and it was thought she would die, the Margraves had taken the child and promised that she should be as their own and a companion to their own child; that their own child had died, and Mildred still remained with them. All this she knew from one who was aware of the circumstances. Then she went on to tell him who Mildred’s mother and father were, what were Telford’s relations to John Gladney and of his search for Gladney’s wife.

“Now,” she said, “you understand all. They must meet.”

“He does not know who she is?”

“He does not. He only knows as yet that she is the daughter of Mrs. Gladney, who, he thinks, is a stranger to him.”

“You know his nature. What will he do?”

“I cannot tell. What can he do? Nothing, nothing!”

“You are sorry for him? You”–

“Do not speak of that,” she said in a choking whisper. “God gave women pity to keep men from becoming demons. You can pity the executioner when, killing you, he must kill himself next.”

“I do not understand you quite, but all you say is wise.”

“Do not try to understand it or me. I am not worth it.”

“You are worth, God knows, a better, happier fate.”

The words came from him unexpectedly, impulsively. Indirect as they were, she caught a hidden meaning. She put out her hand.

“You have something to tell me. Speak it. Say it quickly. Let me know it now. One more shock more or less cannot matter.”

She had an intuition as to what it was. “I warn you, dear,” he said, “that it will make a difference, a painful difference, between us.”

“No, George”–it was the first time she had called him that–“nothing can make any difference with that.”

He told her simply, bravely–she was herself so brave–what there was to tell, that two weeks ago her husband was alive, and that he was now on his way to England–perhaps in England itself. She took it with an unnatural quietness. She grew distressingly pale, but that was all. Her hand lay clinched tightly on the seat beside her. He reached out, took it, and pressed it, but she shook her head.

“Please do not sympathize with me,” she said. “I cannot bear it. I am not adamant. You are very good–so good to me that no unhappiness can be all unhappiness. But let us look not one step farther into the future.”

“What you wish I shall do always.”

“Not what I wish, but what you and I ought to do is plain.”

“I ask one thing only. I have said that I love you, said it as I shall never say it to another woman, as I never said it before. Say to me once here, before we know what the future will be, that you love me. Then I can bear all.”