But as Delafield took the letter and began to read, her pulses began to flutter strangely.  She recalled the phrases of passion which the letter contained.  She became conscious of new fears, new compunctions.

For Delafield, too, the moment was one of almost intolerable complexity.  This tender intimacy of night—­the natural intimacy of husband and wife; this sense, which would not be denied, however sternly he might hold it in check, of her dear form beside him; the little refinements and self-revelations of a woman’s room; his half-rights towards her, appealing at once to love, and to the memory of that solemn pledge by which he had won her—­what man who deserved the name but must be conscious, tempestuously conscious, of such thoughts and facts?

And then, wrestling with these smarts, these impulses, belonging to the natural, physical life, the powers of the moral being—­compassion, self-mastery, generosity; while strengthening and directing all, the man of faith was poignantly aware of the austere and tender voices of religion.

Amid this play of influences he read the letter, still kneeling beside her and holding her fingers clasped in his.  She had closed her eyes and lay still, save for the occasional tremulous movement of her free hand, which dried the tears on her cheek.

“Thank you,” he said, at last, with a voice that wavered, as he put the letter down.  “Thank you.  It was good of you to let me see it.  It changes all my thoughts of him henceforward.  If he had lived—­”

“But he’s dead!  He’s dead!” cried Julie, in a sudden agony, wrenching her hand from his and burying her face in the pillow.  “Just when he wanted to live.  Oh, my God—­my God!  No, there’s no God—­nothing that cares—­that takes any notice!”

She was shaken by deep, convulsive weeping.  Delafield soothed her as best he could.  And presently she stretched out her hand with a quick, piteous gesture, and touched his face.

“You, too!  What have I done to you?  How you looked, just now!  I bring a curse.  Why did you want to marry me?  I can’t tear this out of my heart—­I can’t!”

And again she hid herself from him.  Delafield bent over her.

“Do you imagine that I should be poor-souled enough to ask you?”

Suddenly a wild feeling of revolt ran through Julie’s mind.  The loftiness of his mood chilled her.  An attitude more weakly, passionately human, a more selfish pity for himself would, in truth, have served him better.  Had the pain of the living man escaped his control, avenging itself on the supremacy that death had now given to the lover, Delafield might have found another Julie in his arms.  As it was, her husband seemed to her perhaps less than man, in being more; she admired unwillingly, and her stormy heart withdrew itself.

And when at last she controlled her weeping, and it became evident to him that she wished once more to be alone, his sensitiveness perfectly divined the secret reaction in her.  He rose from his place beside her with a deep, involuntary sigh.  She heard it, but only to shrink away.