Her husband’s attitude was negative and balanced. He threw all his efforts into making good to Gundred the fraud that he had innocently perpetrated. He had no need to look at Isabel, to talk to her, to aggravate the trouble of Gundred’s position. To Kingston and Isabel their secret glory was glory enough. He even shrank from the idea of open friendship with the woman whom his heart loved. It was enough--completely, triumphantly enough--that she should be there in the same house with him, and that he should be for ever conscious of her presence and her relationship to himself. That relationship might have been profaned, spoiled, made common, had they allowed themselves to indulge in talk, in rapture, in the perilous delights of intimacy. As things were, it remained a lovely secret possession, a thing between them both, silent and holy, not to be brought down to earth. The earthly agonies had passed, or only recurred for fleeting moments. The privilege of keeping sacred a feeling so absorbing was enough for the glorification of the present. Morbid and perilous, the situation stood. A month would probably have destroyed its frail balance. In the nature of things it could not last. No sane lover could have contemplated its lasting. But Kingston and Isabel had no plan. They lived from hour to hour; they did not dare to look forward. Destiny would somehow loose the knot of their relations. Silent love was enough for the moment. Their emotions hung breathless on a delicate poise that would not let them contemplate any to-morrow. Besides, such a transcendental attitude, so dangerous, so unpractical, so deadly, left Kingston’s nature free to pay consolatory court to Gundred. With all his external nature he did homage to his wife, and concentrated his skill on paying in full to Gundred the debt he owed. Exalted and fantastic, rather than sensual and practical, his temperament made the task easier than it might have been found by many better, more full-blooded men. To him it became rather a fine martyrdom, in the successful achievement of which lay not only purification, but even pleasure. In the mutilation of the lower self for the sake of the higher he found a comfort so keen as to be almost joy.