"Oh, you _have_ told me over and over again! Do you think I am deaf or blind, or that I have found you dumb? Such love, Jimmy, such high, sweet perfectness! Why, there isn't a woman in a million who has known it or even dreamed what such love could mean. Why, there hasn't been a day or an hour for ten years that you have not spoken it to me in the most adorable way, in the most beautiful way; and in every kind thing you have done, in every foolish, dear thing, I have been so vain as to think that I counted for something in it, that you did it a little for me. Other women have had their lovers, their scandals, their great passions. But I have had you without flaw, without a change, without regret. Hush!" she cried, wiping her tears away, "Hush. It's quite safe to let me go on. The only fear is that _you_ may speak." The arm which she had held out to keep him from her had fallen upon his shoulder, lay about his neck as he knelt by her chair. "It's been horrible!" she said, shaking her head, "Horrible--the days and the nights, the days and the nights! There have been times when I could have killed him and killed myself as well. But then you've come, and your presence has helped me, and that's the way I've pulled along; because by your silence you told me to pull along, because by the fact that you didn't speak I understood that you thought I should be brave, and I have been--thanks to you, and I shall be--thanks to you! Oh!" she cried passionately, "if you think because I am saying it all out that I want to go back, that I don't see what I am running away from, and what you mean, you're cruel, you're cruel!" Her other hand had found its fellow and they both lay on his shoulders. "I only think of you," he breathed, "and of how..." She covered his lips. "Oh, hush, hush, you have told me, in the only way there was to tell. I'm too stupid to be able to combine a lover and a husband. The day and the hour you spoke I should never have seen my husband again. And that's where it stands; that's how it is, and you know it. You loved me because I was like that, and I love you because you are the bravest of the brave. There you are!" she cried, and drew away from him triumphantly, letting her arms fall. "There we both are!" "Have you any vague conception of what this is for me?" Bulstrode asked. "Oh, I dare say," she exclaimed, with a kind of petulance, "that I am only thinking of my own bewildering happiness. There," she exclaimed at his face, "I see you have a new weapon: pity. Oh, don't use that against me, and I warn you that everything in the world will crumble if you speak."