"What has come over you, childie?" he said, beginning to feel vaguely alarmed. She had disengaged herself from his arms, and was walking away to the window. "Oh, nothing. Only it is a pity you leave your coats about. I should never have known if you had not been so careless. At least, I fancy I have known all the winter," she added dreamily, as if to herself. "Known what?" he asked in a voice he did not seem to recognize. But he knew; and he felt rather worse than when he had stood in the porch that afternoon, watching Joan over the fields. "What a hellish sport marriage is!" he added in a bitter undertone. She heard him, and came back to his side. "Digby." "Well? I don't want you to touch me, if you would rather not," he said roughly, and did not look at her. "I want to tell you," she went on softly. "I found Joan's letter, and I read it as a matter of course; I thought it was about--oh, never mind what. That was the day you went down to Murville; and I could not speak to you then. It has been so dreadful waiting for you to come back, Digby. Are you not going to look at me, now you have come?" He turned round bewildered, and saw her eyes full of tears. "Good God, Norah, do you mean you can know that, and--?" "Yes, dear. I think I know more than you. I think I know how you have been feeling lately, and all the winter. But I did not know it was as bad as this, and when I read that letter--do you know how I felt? I think I must tell you, Digby; I have had something to bear too, you know. I felt first that something terrible had come between you and me, something that wanted pushing away with all my might; and I couldn't do it alone, Digby, and you--you were not there to help me. And then--I only felt sorry for you. I have just longed for you to come back that I might put my arms round you and comfort you, and tell you that I knew. Digby, don't turn away like that." "But--it is inconceivable--do you know what you are saying? Do you know that if that letter had not been written, I should have--?" He paused, for he could not bring himself to finish the sentence. But she sprang away from him suddenly, and stood in front of him in the middle of the room, with her hands clasped at the back of her head, and a blaze of triumph in her eyes. "No, no, not that!" she cried; "never that! I knew it could not be. If I had thought you capable of that, should I be speaking to you now like this? Do you think women are such fools then? _I_ know, _she_ knew--that you were not capable of it, that you never meant it, that it was one of your queer impulses that make me love you so madly, and that she can never forgive in you. _That_ is why she wrote you that letter. _That_ is why you are mine now, mine, mine, mine!" The musician fell in love more thoroughly that afternoon than he had ever fallen in love before. He fell in love with his own wife.