“Nay! what you say, kind Richard, fills me with dread,” said Sue after a little pause.  “I am glad ... glad that you have come back....  For some weeks, nay, months past, I have had the presentiment of some coming evil....  I have ...  I have felt lonely and....”

“Not unhappy?” he asked with his usual earnestness.  “I would not have my lady unhappy for all the treasures of this world.”

“No!” she replied meditatively, striving to be conscious of her own feelings, “I do not think that I am unhappy ... only anxious ... and ... a little lonely:  that is all....  Sir Marmaduke is oft away:  when he is at home, I scarce ever see him, and he but rarely speaks to me ... and methinks there is but scant sympathy ’twixt Mistress de Chavasse and me, though she is kind at times in her way.”

Then she turned her eyes, bright with unshed tears, down again to him.

“But all seems right again!” she said with a sweet, sad smile, “now that you have come back, my dear ... dear friend!”

“God bless you for these words!”

“I grieved terribly when I heard ... about you ... at first ...” she said almost gaily now, “yet somehow I could not believe it all ... and now....”

“Yes? ... and now?” he asked.

“Now I believe in you,” she replied simply.  “I believe that you care for me, and that you are my friend.”

“Your friend, indeed, for I would give my life for you.”

Once more he stooped, but now he kissed her hand.  He was her friend, and had the right to do this.  He had gradually mastered his emotion, his sense of wrong, and with that exquisite selflessness which real love alone can kindle in a human heart, he had succeeded in putting aside all thought of his own great misery, his helplessness and the hopelessness of his position, and remembered only that she looked fragile, a little older, sadder, and had need of his help.

“And now, sweet lady,” he said, forcing himself to speak calmly of that which always set his heart and senses into a turmoil of passionate jealousy, “will you tell me something about him.”

“Him?”

“The prince....” he suggested.

But she shook her head resolutely.

“No, kind Richard,” she said gently, “I will not speak to you of the prince.  I know that you do not think well of him....  I wish to look upon you as my friend, and I could not do that if you spoke ill of him, because ...”

She paused, for what she now had to tell him was very hard to say, and she knew what a terrible blow she would be dealing to his heart, from the wild beating of her own.

“Yes?” he asked.  “Because? ...”

“Because he is my husband,” she whispered.

Her head fell forward on her breast.  She would not trust herself to look at him now, for she knew that the sight of his grief was more than she could bear.  She was conscious that at her words he had drawn his hand away from hers, but he spoke no word, nor did the faintest exclamation escape his lips.