He had not intended to come. In his wildest moments he had never thought of going to her again, but as he passed along the road, intending to spend the afternoon in wandering across the country, he looked up at the windows of the house, and a strange fancy seized upon him. He would go in and ask her the question he had asked himself again and again. It did not seem to him at the time a strange thing to do. It looked wonderfully simple and natural in his strained and unnatural mood. He turned in at the gate with only one feeling--that perhaps she would tell him, and then it would be over. She saw him come up the path, and wondered if the man at the door would remember the charge she had given him. It chanced that he did not remember, or that he was thrown off his guard. She heard feet on the stairs in a few seconds, and almost immediately Murdoch was in the room. What she thought when, being brought thus near to him, she saw and recognized the dreadful change in him, God knows. She supported herself with her hand upon the back of her chair as she rose. There was a look in his face almost wolfish. He would not sit down, and in three minutes broke through the barrier of her effort at controlling him. It was impossible for her to control him as she might have controlled another man. "I have only a few words to say," he said. "I have come to ask you a question. I think that is all--only to ask you a question." "Will you tell me," he said, "what wrong I have done you?" She put her other hand on the chair and held it firmly. "Will you tell me," she said, almost in a whisper, "what wrong I have done _you_?" She remained so, looking at him and he at her, with a terrible helplessness, through a moment of dead silence. She dropped her face upon her hands as she held the chair, and so stood. He fell back a pace, gazing at her still. "I have heard of women who fancied themselves injured," he said, "planning to revenge themselves upon the men who had intentionally or unintentionally wounded their pride. I remember such things in books I have read, not in real life, and once or twice the thought has crossed my mind that at some time in the past I might, in my poor ignorance, have presumed--or--blundered in some way to--anger you--and that this has been my punishment. It is only a wild thought, but it was a straw to cling to, and I would rather believe it, wild as it is, than believe that what you have done has been done wantonly. Can it be--is it true?" "No." But she did not lift her face. "It is not?" "No." "Then it is worse than I thought." He said the words slowly and clearly, and they were his last. Having said them, he went away without a backward glance. CHAPTER XLVI. ONCE AGAIN.