“Now, look here, Sylvia, here are you and I. We’ve got this secret betwixt us, and we’ve got to carry it betwixt us, and never let any living mortal see it as long as we both live; and the one that outlives the other has got to bear it alone, like a sacred trust.”

Sylvia nodded.  Henry put out the kitchen lamp, and the two left the room, moving side by side, and it was to each of them as if they were in reality carrying with their united strength the heavy, dead weight of the secret.

Chapter XIX

Henry, after the revelation which Sylvia had made to him, became more puzzled than ever.  He had thought that her secret anxiety would be alleviated by the confidence she had made him, but it did not seem to be.  On the contrary, she went about with a more troubled air than before.  Even Horace and Rose, in the midst of their love-dream, noticed it.

One day Henry, coming suddenly into the sitting-room, found Rose on her knees beside Sylvia, weeping bitterly.  Sylvia was looking over the girl’s head with a terrible, set expression, as if she were looking at her own indomitable will.  For the first time Henry lost sight of the fact that Sylvia was a woman.  He seemed to see her as a separate human soul, sexless and free, intent upon her own ends, which might be entirely distinct from his, and utterly unknown to him.

Rose turned her tear-wet face towards him.  “Oh, Uncle Henry,” she sobbed, “Aunt Sylvia is worrying over something, and she won’t tell me.”

“Nonsense,” said Henry.

“Yes, she is.  Horace and I both know she is.  She won’t tell me what it is.  She goes about all the time with such a dreadful face, and she won’t tell me.  Oh, Aunt Sylvia, is it because you don’t want me to marry Horace?”

Sylvia spoke, hardly moving her thin lips.  “I have nothing whatever against your marriage,” she said.  “I did think at first that you were better off as you were, but now I don’t feel so.”

“But you act so.”  Rose stumbled to her feet and ran sobbing out of the room.

Henry turned to his wife, who sat like a statue.  “Sylvia, you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said, in a bewildered tone.  “Here you are taking all the pleasure out of that poor child’s little love-affair, going about as you do.”

“There are other things besides love-affairs,” said Sylvia, in a strange, monotonous tone, almost as if she were deaf and dumb, and had no knowledge of inflections.  “There are affairs between the soul and its Maker that are more important than love betwixt men and women.”

Sylvia did not look at Henry.  She still gazed straight ahead, with that expression of awful self-review.  The thought crossed Henry’s mind that she was more like some terrible doll with a mechanical speech than a living woman.  He went up to her and took her hands.  They were lying stiffly on her lap, in the midst of soft white cambric and lace—­some bridal lingerie which she was making for Rose.  “Look here, Sylvia,” said Henry, “you don’t mean that you are fretting about—­what you told me?”