She looked at his face, the unforgotten, unforgetable face, which when she first knew it had kindled and darkened so swiftly and inexplicably.  She knew it now.  She held the key of all its mysteries.  It was the face that had turned to her five years ago with just that look; in the mouth and lifted chin that imperious impetuous determination to make her see; in the eyes that pathetic trust in her seeing.  The same face; and yet it would have told her, if he had not, that he was another man.  No, not another man; but of all the ways that were then open to him to take he had chosen the noblest.  And so, of all the expressions that in its youth had played on that singularly expressive face, it was the finest only that had become dominant.  That face had never lied to her.  Why should he not plead for the sincerity of his passion, since it was all over now?  Was it possible that there was some secret insincerity in her?  How was it that she had made him think that she desired to ignore, to repudiate her part in him?  That she preferred a meaningless compliment to the confession which was the highest honour that could be paid to any woman?  Was it because the honour was so great that she was afraid to take it?

“Of course I would rather think it was really so.”

“Then you must believe that I really cared for you; and that it is only because I cared that it is really so.”

“I do believe it.  But I can’t take it all to myself.  Another person might have cared just as much, and it might have done him harm—­I would never have forgiven myself if I had done you harm—­I want you to see that it wasn’t anything in me; it was something in you that made the difference.”

He smiled sadly.  “You know it does sound as if you wanted to keep out of it.”

“Does it?  If I had really been in it, do you think that I wouldn’t be glad and thankful?  I am, even for the little that I have done.  Even though I know another woman might have done as much, or more, I’m glad I was the one.  But, you see, I didn’t know I was in it at all.  I didn’t know the sort of help you wanted.  Perhaps, if I had known, I couldn’t have helped you.  But my knowing or not knowing doesn’t matter one bit.  If I did help you—­that way—­I helped some one else too.  At least I should like to think I did.  I should like to think that one reason why you care for your wife so much is because you cared a little for me.  There is that way of looking at it.”  Then, lest she should seem to be seeking some extraneous justification of a fact that in her heart she abhorred, she added, “Every way I look at it I’m glad.  I’m glad that you cared.  I’m glad because it’s been, and glad because it’s over.  For if it hadn’t been over—­”

“What were you going to say?”

“I was going to say that if it hadn’t been over you couldn’t have given me these.  I didn’t say it; because it would have sounded as if that were all I cared about.  As if I wouldn’t have been almost as glad if you’d never written a line of them.  Only in that case I should never have known.”