She went in without a word, and came to a stand before the table that was littered with his work.  She was agitated, he saw.  Her hand was pressed against her heart, and she seemed to breathe with difficulty.

Instinctively he came to her aid with commonplace phrases—­the first that occurred to him.  “How did you come?  But no matter!  Tell me presently.  You must have something to eat.  You look dead beat.  Sit down, won’t—­”

And there he stopped again, breaking off short to stare at her.  In the lighted room she had turned to face him, and he saw that her hair was no longer golden but silvery white.

Seeing his look, she began to speak in hurried, uneven sentences.  “I have been ill, you know.  It—­it was brain fever, Jim said.  Hair—­fair hair particularly—­does go like that sometimes.”

“You are well again?” he questioned.

“Oh, quite—­quite.”  There was something almost feverish in the assertion; she was facing him with desperate resolution.  “I have been well for a long time.  Please don’t send for anything.  I dined at the dak-bungalow an hour ago.  I—­I thought it best.”

Her agitation was increasing.  She panted between each sentence.  Will turned aside, shut and bolted the window, and drew the blind.  Then he went close to her; he laid a steady hand upon her.

“Sit down,” he said, “and tell me what is the matter.”

She sank down mutely.  Her mouth was quivering; she sought to hide it from him with her hand.

“Tell me,” he said again, and quietly though he spoke there was in his tone a certain mastery that had never asserted itself in the old days; “What is it?  Why have you come to me like this?”

“I—­haven’t come to stay, Will,” she said, her voice so low that it was barely audible.

His face changed.  He looked suddenly dogged.  “After twenty months!” he said.

She bent her head.  “I know.  It’s half a lifetime—­more.  You have learnt to do without me by this.  At least—­I hope you have—­for your own sake.”

He made no comment on the words; perhaps he did not hear them.  After a brief silence she heard his voice above her bowed head.  “Something is wrong.  You’ll tell me presently, won’t you?  But—­really you needn’t be afraid.”

Something in the words—­was it a hint of tenderness?—­renewed her failing strength.  She commanded herself and raised her head.  She scarcely recognised in the steady, square-chinned man before her the impulsive, round-faced boy she had left.  There was something unfathomable about him, a hint of greatness that affected her strangely.

“Yes,” she said.  “Something is wrong.  It is what I am here for—­what I have come to tell you.  And when it is over, I’m going away—­I’m going away—­out of your life—­for ever, this time.”

His jaw hardened, but he said nothing whatever.  He stood waiting for her to continue.

She rose slowly to her feet though she was scarcely capable of standing.  She had come to the last ounce of her strength, but she spent it bravely.