"If there were any reason for my suspicions, it is evident that he transferred his affections to you. It is a terrible thing to say, but--but I feel as if--as if--your presence here had averted a dreadful catastrophe from us. Yes; that letter might have been meant for my wife, and I might have found her here instead of you. Do not think it heartless of me if I say that, deeply as I sympathize with you and grieve for your--your trouble, I am relieved--relieved of an awful apprehension on--on Lady Wolfer's account. I have suffered a great deal during the past few months." "Yes," said Nell, forgetting her own misery in sympathy for him. He looked at her quickly. "You have noticed it?" Nell inclined her head. "I have lived in the house--I have seen----" she faltered. He nodded once or twice. "Yes; I suppose that you could not help seeing that there has been a--a gulf between us; that we are not as other, happier, husbands and wives." He sighed, and passed his hand across his brow wearily. "But we are not the only couple who, living in the same house, are asunder. I am not the only man who has to endure, secretly and with a smiling face, the fact that his wife does not care for him." Nell raised her head, and the color came to her pale face. "You are wrong--wrong!" she said, in a low voice, but eagerly. "Wrong? I beg your pardon?" he said gravely. "It is all a terrible mistake," said Nell. "She does care for you. Oh, yes, yes! It is you who have been blind; it is your fault. It is hers, too; but you are the man, and it is your place to speak--to tell her that you love her----" He reddened as he turned to her with a curious eagerness and surprise. "I don't understand you," he said, with a shake in his voice. "Do you mean me to infer that--that I have been under a delusion in thinking that my wife----" Nell rose and stretched out her hands with a gesture of infinite weariness. "Oh, how blind you are!" she said, almost impatiently. "You think that she does not care for you, and she thinks that of you, and you are both in love with each other." His face glowed, and a strange brightness--the glow of hope--shone in his eyes. "Take care!" he said huskily. "You--you use words lightly, perhaps unthinkingly----" Nell laughed, with a kind of weary irritation. "I am telling you the truth; I am trying to open your eyes," she said. "She loves you." "Why--why do you think so? Have you ever heard her address a word to me that had a note of tenderness in it?" "Have you ever addressed such a word to her?" retorted Nell. He started, and gazed at her confusedly.