"Please don't tell me what he said, Milly," Ian interrupted, still coldly, but with a slight expression of disgust. "I'd rather you didn't. I suppose I ought to have taken better care of you, my poor little girl, but really here in Oxford one never thinks of anything so outrageous happening." "I must tell you one thing," she resumed, almost obstinately. "He said he knew I didn't love you--that _I_ didn't love _you_, my own darling husband. Some one, some one--must be responsible for his thinking that. How do I know what happens when--when I'm away. My poor Ian! Left with a creature who doesn't love you!" Ian rose. His face was cold and hard still, but there was a faint flush on his cheek, the mark of a frown between his black brows. He walked to a window and looked out into the moonlit garden, where the gnarled apple-trees threw weird black shadows on grass and wall, like shapes of grotesque animals, or half-hidden spectres, lurking, listening, waiting. "We're getting on to a dangerous subject," he answered, at length. "Don't give me pain by imagining evil about--about yourself. You could never, under any aspect, be anything but innocent and loyal and all that a man could wish his wife to be." He smoothed his brow with an effort, went up to her, and taking her soft face between his hands kissed her forehead. "There!" he exclaimed, with a forced smile. "Don't let's talk about it any more, darling. Go to bed and forget all about it. It won't seem so bad to-morrow morning." But Milly did not respond. When he released her head she threw it back against her own clasped hands, closing her eyes. She was ghastly pale. "No," she moaned, "I can't bear it by myself. It's too, too awful. It's not Me; it's something that takes my place. I saw it once. It's an evil spirit. O God, what have I done that such a thing should happen to me! I've always tried to be good." There was a clash of pity and anger in Ian's breast. Pity for Milly's case, anger on account of her whom his inmost being recognized as another, whatever his rational self might say to the matter. He sat down beside his wife and uttered soothing nothings. But she turned upon him eyes of wild despair, the more tragic because it broke through a nature fitted only for the quietest commonplaces of life. She flung herself upon him, clutching him tight, hiding her face upon him. "What have I done?" she moaned again. "You know I always believed in God, in God's love. I wouldn't have disbelieved even if He'd taken you away from me. But now I can't believe in anything. There must be wicked spirits, but there can't be a good God if He allows them to take possession of a poor girl like me, who's never done any one any harm. O Ian, I've tried to pray, and I can't. I don't believe in anything now." Ian was deeply perplexed. He himself believed neither in a God nor in evil spirits, and he knew not how to approach Milly's mind. At length he said, quietly: