“Nora said you sent this letter to me—­it’s for Bernal—­”

He answered, still without looking up,

“I thought he might be with you, or that you might know where he was.”

“I don’t.”

He knew that she studied the superscription of the envelope.

“Well, leave it here on my desk till he comes.  I sent it to you only because I heard him inquiring if a letter had not come for him—­he seemed rather anxious about some letter—­troubled, in fact—­doubtless some business affair.  I hoped this might be what he was expecting.”

His eyes were still on the page before him, and he crossed out a word and wrote another above it, after a meditative pause.  Still the woman at the door hesitated.

“Did you chance to notice the address on the envelope?”

He glanced at her now for the first time, apparently in some surprise:  “No—­it is not my custom to study addresses of letters not my own.  Nora said it was for Bernal and he had seemed really distressed about some letter or message that didn’t come—­if you will leave it here—­”

“I wish to hand it to him myself.”

“As you like.”  He returned to his work, crossing out a whole line and a half with broad, emphatic marks.  Then he bent lower, and the interest in his page seemed to redouble, for he heard the door of Bernal’s room open.  Nancy called: 

“Bernal!”

He came to the door where she stood and she stepped a little inside so that he might enter.

“I am anxious about a letter.  Ah, you have it!”

She was scanning him with a look that was acid to eat out any untruth in his face.

“Yes—­it just came.”  She held it out to him.  He looked at the front of the envelope, then up to her half-shut eager eyes—­eyes curiously hardened now—­then he blushed flagrantly—­a thorough, riotous blush—­and reached for the letter with a pitiful confusion of manner, not again raising his uneasy eyes to hers.

“I was expecting—­looking—­for a message, you know—­yes, yes—­this is it—­thank you very much, you know!”

He stammered, his confusion deepened.  With the letter clutched eagerly in his hand he went out.

She looked after him, intently.  When he had shut his own door she glanced over at the inattentive Allan, once more busy at his manuscript and apparently unconscious of her presence.

A long time she stood in silence, trying to moderate the beating of her heart.  Once she turned as if to go, but caught herself and turned again to look at the bent head of Allan.

At last it seemed to her that she could trust herself to speak.  Closing the door softly, she went to the big chair at the end of the desk.  As she let herself go into this with a sudden joy in the strength of its supporting arms, her husband looked up at her inquiringly.

She did not speak, but returned his gaze; returned it, with such steadiness that presently he let his own eyes go down before hers with palpable confusion, as if fearing some secret might lie there plain to her view.  His manner stimulated the suspicion under which she now seemed to labour.