"She was happy, you say?" Herrick felt a sudden desire to probe beneath the surface. "You never--forgive me--you never found her depressed--or--or unsettled--in low spirits?" "No. She was sometimes a little--well, what shall we call it?--not bad-tempered, but well, a trifle jumpy; but she seemed to be in good spirits as a rule." "You never--I suppose"--he laughed, trying to make the question sound casual--"you never had any disagreements--any little fallings-out? Oh, don't think me impertinent--I was only wondering whether perhaps Mrs. Rose had taken offence at some little thing--and had gone off for a short visit somewhere to--well, to punish you." He had half expected Owen to resent the implication; but Owen took it quietly. "We never exactly quarrelled," he said. "At least, that isn't quite true. We did disagree, more than once, on one particular subject; and last night we certainly had a few words. We both lost our tempers--I confess I lost mine--and I said one or two things I'd have given the world to recall afterwards." "I see." Herrick spoke gravely. "Well, no doubt Mrs. Rose knows you did not mean anything unkind----" "I hope so. By God, I hope so." Owen's voice was hoarse. "If I thought Toni had taken my words seriously I--why, I said things I didn't mean in the very least, and I never for one instant dreamed she would take them as spoken in earnest." "I see." Herrick repeated the words. "You will pardon me for saying that Mrs. Rose always struck me as being more sensitive than the majority of women." "Did she?" Owen stared at him, struck suddenly by the significance of his manner. "By Jove, Herrick, I never suspected my wife of any undue sensitiveness. She always seemed to me too young, too immature and undeveloped to take things much to heart. Her youth was one of the greatest charms about her to me. It never struck me she was a woman, capable of a woman's sufferings----" He broke off suddenly. "Stay, though. Once I thought--she looked at me and I thought her eyes looked different--not like the eyes of a child. I wondered then ... but ... oh, no, she couldn't think I meant the things I said. Once or twice I have felt exasperated at what I thought was her childishness, her ignorance of the world, and I've said things now and again, unkind things, even cruel things sometimes ... but I've been secure all the time in the thought that she didn't understand...." "You wouldn't have hurt her--wilfully?" "Hurt her?" Owen stared at him. "Good God, man, what do you take me for? A man doesn't wilfully hurt his wife--the woman he loves. And to hurt Toni would be like hurting a child."