"I am trying to forget.
Do you think of it much?"
"My darling, it is too contemptible to be thought of."
She placed her work-basket on her lap.
Her wasted fingers began absently sorting the wools inside.
"Have you seen Mr. Julian Gray?" she asked, suddenly.
"Yes."
"What does he say about it?"
She looked at Horace for the first time, steadily scrutinizing his face.
Horace took refuge in prevarication.
"I really haven't asked for Julian's opinion," he said.
She looked down again, with a sigh, at the basket on her lap—considered a little—and tried him once more.
"Why has Mr. Julian Gray not been here for a whole week?" she went on.
"The servants say he has been abroad.
Is that true?"
It was useless to deny it.
Horace admitted that the servants were right.
Her fingers, suddenly stopped at their restless work among the wools; her breath quickened perceptibly.
What had Julian Gray been doing abroad?
Had he been making inquiries?
Did he alone, of all the people who saw that terrible meeting, suspect her?
Yes! His was the finer intelligence; his was a clergyman's (a London clergyman's) experience of frauds and deceptions, and of the women who were guilty of them.
Not a doubt of it now! Julian suspected her.
"When does he come back?" she asked, in tones so low that Horace could barely hear her.
"He has come back already. He returned last night."
A faint shade of color stole slowly over the pallor of her face.
She suddenly put her basket away, and clasped her hands together to quiet the trembling of them, before she asked her next question.
"Where is—" She paused to steady her voice.
"Where is the person," she resumed, "who came here and frightened me?"
Horace hastened to re-assure her.
"The person will not come again," he said. "Don't talk of her! Don't think of her!"
She shook her head.
"There is something I want to know," she persisted. "How did Mr. Julian Gray become acquainted with her?"
This was easily answered.
Horace mentioned the consul at Mannheim, and the letter of introduction.
She listened eagerly, and said her next words in a louder, firmer tone.
"She was quite a stranger, then, to Mr. Julian Gray—before that?"
"Quite a stranger," Horace replied.
"No more questions—not another word about her, Grace!
I forbid the subject.
Come, my own love!" he said, taking her hand and bending over her tenderly, "rally your spirits!
We are young—we love each other—now is our time to be happy!"
Her hand turned suddenly cold, and trembled in his.
Her head sank with a helpless weariness on her breast.
Horace rose in alarm.
"You are cold—you are faint," he said.
"Let me get you a glass of wine!—let me mend the fire!"
The decanters were still on the luncheon-table.
Horace insisted on her drinking some port-wine.
She barely took half the contents of the wine-glass.