‘Weeks!’

‘Her cheerfulness only came with time, after that.’

’And it is your conviction that she has absolutely put me out of her mind?  That she has found sufficient happiness in the progress she has felt herself to be making?’

’That is my firm belief.  Her character is not so easy to read as to-day’s newspaper.  She can suffer, I think, even more than most women, but she has, too, far more strength than most women, a mind of a higher order, purer consolations.  And she has art to aid her, a resource you and I cannot judge of with assurance.’

Walter looked up and said: 

’You are describing a woman who might be the most refined man’s ideal.’

‘I think so.’

‘You admit that Thyrza is in every way more than fit to be my wife.’

‘I will admit that, Walter.’

’Then I am astonished at your tone in speaking of what I mean to do.’

‘You have asked me two questions,’ said Mrs. Ormonde, her face alight with conviction.  ’Please answer two of mine.  Is this woman worthy of a man’s entire love?’

He hesitated, but answered affirmatively.

’And have you that entire love to give her?  Walter, the truth, for she is very dear to me.’

(In her room in London Thyrza sat, and said to herself, ’To-morrow he comes!’)

He answered:  ‘I have not.’

‘Then,’ Mrs. Ormonde said, a slight flush in her cheeks, ’how can you express surprise at what I do?’

A long silence fell.  Walter brooded, something of shame on his face from that confession.  Then he came to Mrs. Ormonde’s side, and took her hand.

‘You are incapable,’ he said gently, ’of conscious injustice.  Had you said nothing of this to me, I should have gone to Thyrza to-morrow, and have asked her to marry me.  She would not have refused; even granting that her passion has gone, you know she would not refuse me, and you know too that I could enrich her life abundantly.  My passion, too, is over, but I know well that love for such a woman as she is would soon awake in me.  I do not think I should do her any injustice if I asked her to be my wife:  shall I be unjust to her if I withhold?’

Mrs. Ormonde did not answer at once.  She retained his hand, and her own showed how strongly she felt.

’Walter, I think it would be unjust to her if you asked her—­ remembering her present mind.  It is not only that your passion for her is dead; you think of another woman.’

‘It is true.  But I do not love her.’

She smiled.

’You are not ready to behave crazily about her; no.  But I believe that you love her in a truer sense than you ever loved Thyrza.  You love her mind.’

‘Has not Thyrza a mind?’

’You do not know it, Walter.  I doubt whether you would ever know it.  Recall a letter you wrote to me, in which you dissected your own character.  It was frank and in a very great measure true.  You are not the husband for Thyrza.’