"Yes, you may say so--you must say so! There is no other account you can give of it!--no other account I can authorize you to give it. It is four-fifths true--and no one in this house--not even you--has any right to press me further. At the same time, I am not going to put even the fraction of a lie between myself and you, Geoffrey, for you have been--a dear fellow--to me!" He put his hand a moment on Geoffrey's shoulder, withdrawing it instantly. "The point is--what would have come about--if this had not happened? That is the test. And I can't give a perfectly clear answer." He began to pace the room--thinking aloud. "I have been very anxious--lately--to marry. I have been so many years alone; and I--well, there it is!--I have suffered from it, physically and morally; more perhaps than other men might have suffered. And lately--you must try and understand me, Geoffrey!--although I had doubts--yes, deep down, I still had doubts--whether I was really free--I have been much more ready to believe than I used to be, that I might now disregard the doubts--silence them!--for good and all. It has been my obsession--you may say now my temptation. Oh! the divorce court would probably have freed me--have allowed me to presume my wife's death after these fifteen years. But the difficulty lay in my own conscience. Was I certain? No! I was not certain! Anna's ways and standards were well known to me. I could imagine various motives which might have induced her to deceive me. At the same time"--he stopped and pointed to his writing-table--"these drawers are stuffed full of reports and correspondence, from agents all over Europe, whom I employed in the years before the war to find out anything they could. I cannot accuse myself of any deliberate or wilful ignorance. I made effort after effort--in vain. I was entitled--at last--it often seemed to me to give up the effort, to take my freedom. But then"--his voice dropped--"I thought of the woman I might love--and wish to marry. I should indeed have told her everything, and the law might have been ready to protect us. But if Anna still lived, and were suddenly to reappear in my life--what a situation!--for a sensitive, scrupulous woman!" "It would have broken--spoiled--everything!" said Geoffrey, under his breath, but with emphasis. He was leaning against the mantelpiece, and his face was hidden from his companion. Buntingford threw him a strange, deprecating look. "You are right--you are quite right. Yet I believe, Geoffrey, I might have committed that wrong--but for this--what shall I call it?--this 'act of God' that has happened to me. Don't misunderstand me!" He came to stand beside his nephew, and spoke with intensity. "It was _only_ a possibility--and there is no guilt on my conscience. I have no real person in my mind. But any day I might have failed my own sense of justice--my own sense of honour--sufficiently--to let a woman risk it!"