She thought she knew.  She felt that he was describing vaguely and with incomparable innocence the approaches of the ladies who had once designed to marry him.  He had never seen through them; they (and they must have been so obvious, those ladies) had remained for him inscrutable, mysterious.  He could deal competently with effects, but he was not clever at assigning causes.

He seemed conscious of her reflections.  “They were quite nice, don’t you know.  Only they couldn’t let you alone.  You let me alone so perfectly.  Being with you was peace.”

“I see,” she said quietly.  “It was peace.  That was all.”

“Oh, was it?  That was only the beginning, if you must know how it began.”

“It began,” she murmured, “in peace.  That was what struck you most in me.  I must have seemed to you at peace, then.”

“You did—­you did.  Weren’t you?”

“I must have been.  But I’ve forgotten.  It’s so long ago.  There’s peace here, though.  Why didn’t we choose this place instead of Scarby?”

“I wish we had.  I say—­are you never going to forget that?”

“I’ve forgiven it.  I might forget it if I could only understand.”

“Understand what?”

“How you could be capable of caring for me—­like that—­and yet—­”

“But the two things are so entirely different.  It’s impossible to explain to you how different.  Heaven forbid that you should understand the difference.”

“I understand enough to know—­”

“You understand enough to know nothing.  You must simply take my word for it.  Besides, the one thing’s an old thing, over and done with.”

“Over and done with.  But if the two things are so different, how can you be sure?”

“That sounds awfully clever of you, but I’m hanged if I know what you mean.”

“I mean, how can you tell that it—­the old thing—­never would come back?”

It was clever of her.  He realised that he had to deal now with a more complete and complex creature than Anne had been.

“How could it?” he asked.

“If she came back—­”

“Never.  And if it did—­”

“Ah, if it did—­”

“It couldn’t in this case—­my case—­your case—­”

“Her case—­” she whispered.

“Her case?  She hasn’t got one.  She simply doesn’t exist.  She might come back as much as she pleased, and still she wouldn’t exist.  Is that what you’ve been afraid of all the time?”

“I never was really afraid till now.”

“What you’re afraid of couldn’t happen.  You can put that out of your head for ever.  If I could mention you in the same sentence as that woman you should know why I am so certain.  As it is, I must ask you again to take my word for it.”

He paused.

“But, since you have raised the question—­and it’s interesting, too—­I knew a man once—­not a ‘bad’ man—­to whom that very thing did happen.  And it didn’t mean that he’d left off caring for his wife.  On the contrary, he was still insanely fond of her.”