Whereat Mrs. Horncastle again burst into tears.  And then, with her head half drawn towards his shoulder, she told him all,—­all that had passed between her and her husband,—­even all that they had then but hinted at.  It was as if she felt she could now, for the first time, voice all these terrible memories of the past which had come back to her last night when her husband had left her.  She concealed nothing, she veiled nothing; there were intervals when her tears no longer flowed, and a cruel hardness and return of her old imperiousness of voice and manner took their place, as if she was doing a rigid penance and took a bitter satisfaction in laying bare her whole soul to him.  “I never had a friend,” she whispered; “there were women who persecuted me with their jealous sneers; there were men who persecuted me with their selfish affections.  When I first saw you, you seemed something so apart and different from all other men that, although I scarcely knew you, I wanted to tell you, even then, all that I have told you now.  I wanted you to be my friend; something told me that you could,—­that you could separate me from my past; that you could tell me what to do; that you could make me think as you thought, see life as you saw it, and trust always to some goodness in people as you did.  And in this faith I thought that you would understand me now, and even forgive me all.”

She made a slight movement as if to disengage his arm, and, possibly, to look into his eyes, which she knew instinctively were bent upon her downcast head.  But he only held her the more tightly until her cheek was close against his breast.  “What could I do?” she murmured.  “A man in sorrow and trouble may go to a woman for sympathy and support and the world will not gainsay or misunderstand him.  But a woman—­weaker, more helpless, credulous, ignorant, and craving for light—­must not in her agony go to a man for succor and sympathy.”

“Why should she not?” burst out Barker passionately, releasing her in his attempt to gaze into her face.  “What man dare refuse her?”

“Not that,” she said slowly, but with still averted eyes, “but because the world would say she loved him.”

“And what should she care for the opinion of a world that stands aside and lets her suffer?  Why should she heed its wretched babble?” he went on in flashing indignation.

“Because,” she said faintly, lifting her moist eyes and moist and parted lips towards him,—­“because it would be true!”

There was a silence so profound that even the spring seemed to withhold its song as their eyes and lips met.  When the spring recommenced its murmur, and they could hear the droning of a bee above them and the rustling of the reed, she was murmuring, too, with her face against his breast:  “You did not think it strange that I should follow you—­that I should risk everything to tell you what I have told you before I told you anything else?  You will never hate me for it, George?”