"I must have been. But I've forgotten. It's so long ago. There's peace here, though. Why didn't we choose this place instead of Scarby?" "I wish we had. I say--are you never going to forget that?" "I've forgiven it. I might forget it if I could only understand." "Understand _what_?" "How you could be capable of caring for me--like that--and yet--" "But the two things are so entirely different. It's impossible to explain to you how different. Heaven forbid that you should understand the difference." "I understand enough to know--" "You understand enough to know nothing. You must simply take my word for it. Besides, the one thing's an old thing, over and done with." "Over and done with. But if the two things are so different, how can you be sure?" "That sounds awfully clever of you, but I'm hanged if I know what you mean." "I mean, how can you tell that it--the old thing--never would come back?" It _was_ clever of her. He realised that he had to deal now with a more complete and complex creature than Anne had been. "How could it?" he asked. "If _she_ came back--" "Never. And if it did--" "Ah, if it did--" "It couldn't in this case--my case--your case--" "Her case--" she whispered. "Her case? She hasn't got one. She simply doesn't exist. She might come back as much as she pleased, and still she wouldn't exist. Is _that_ what you've been afraid of all the time?" "I never was really afraid till now." "What you're afraid of couldn't happen. You can put that out of your head for ever. If I could mention you in the same sentence as that woman you should know why I am so certain. As it is, I must ask you again to take my word for it." He paused. "But, since you have raised the question--and it's interesting, too--I knew a man once--not a 'bad' man--to whom that very thing did happen. And it didn't mean that he'd left off caring for his wife. On the contrary, he was still insanely fond of her." "What did it mean, then?" "That she'd left off showing that she cared for him. And he cared more for her, that man, after having left her, than he did before. In its way it was a sort of test." "I pray heaven--" said Anne; but she was too greatly shocked by the anecdote to shape her prayer. Majendie, feeling that the time, the place, and her mood were propitious for the exposition, went on. "There's another man I know. He was very fond of Edie. He's fond of her still. He'll come and sit for hours playing backgammon with her. And yet all his fondness for her hasn't kept him entirely straight. But he'd have been as straight as anybody if he could have married her." "But what does all this prove?" "It proves nothing," he said almost passionately, "except that these two things, just because they're different, are not so incompatible as you seem to think." "Did Edie care for that man?" "I believe so." "Ah, don't you see? There's the difference. What made Edie a saint made him a sinner."