Both were outwardly quite calm, but who can guess which of those two strong hearts was most conscious of tremor or weakness when Royston and Cecil met? His hand at least was the steadier, for her slight fingers quivered nervously in his grasp. He did not let them go till he began to speak. "Whatever your decision may be after hearing me, I shall always thank you for coming here. It was like you--to give me the chance of speaking for myself. At least no falsehood or misconception shall stand between us. Will you listen to my story?" "I came for no other purpose," Cecil said, and she sat down on the trunk of a fallen olive: she knew there would be need to husband all her strength. Thinking of these things, in after days, she never forgot how carefully he arranged his plaid on the branches behind her, so as to keep off the gusts of wind that ever and anon blew sharply. At that very instant, as if there were some strange sympathy in the elements, the sun plunged into the bosom of a dull leaden cloud, and there came a growl of distant thunder. "I shall not tax your patience long," Royston went on. "It shall only be the briefest outline. But do not interrupt me till I have ended; it is hard enough to have to begin and go through with it. I can not tell you why I married. Many people asked me the question at the time, and I have asked it of myself often since, but I never could find any satisfactory answer. The woman I chose was then very beautiful, and it was not a disadvantageous match, but I had seen fairer faces and fortunes go by without coveting them. I think a certain obstinacy of purpose, and an absurd pleasure in carrying off a prize (such a prize!) from many rivals was at the bottom of it all. In six months I began to appreciate the inconveniences of living with a statue; but I can say it truly, I never dreamed of betraying her. Yet I had temptations. Remember I was not yet twenty-two, and one does not bear disappointments well at that age. We had not been married quite a year when an officer in a native regiment died, up in the Hills, of _delirium tremens_. Do you know that, under such circumstances, there is always a commission appointed to examine the dead man's papers. I could not help seeing that, for some days past, my wife's manner had been strangely sullen and cold, but I had no suspicion of the truth. I don't think I have ever been so surprised as when the president of the commission brought me a bundle of her letters. I never saw her paramour: he must have been more fool than scoundrel to have kept what he ought to have burned. I did not thank the man who gave me those papers, and I never spoke to him again. I only read one of them: it was written soon after our marriage. I went to my wife with _this_ in my hand. She listened to me in her own icy way, not denying or confessing any thing; but she defied me to prove actual infidelity either before or after my authority began. I could not do it, whatever I might think.