Living in perpetual falsehood, Nancy felt no shame at a fiction such as this.  Mere truth-telling had never seemed to her a weighty matter of the law.  And she was now grown expert in lies.  But Tarrant’s message disturbed her gravely.  Something unforeseen must have happened—­something, perhaps, calamitous.  She passed a miserable night.

When she ascended the stairs at Staple Inn, next afternoon, it wanted ten minutes to four.  As usual at her coming, the outer door stood open, exposing the door with the knocker.  She had just raised her hand, when, with a sound of voices from inside, the door opened, and Tarrant appeared in company with a stranger.  Terror-stricken, she stepped back.  Tarrant, after a glance, paid no attention to her.

‘All right,’ he was saying to his friend, ’I shall see you in a day or two.  Good-bye, old man.’

The stranger had observed Nancy, but withheld his eyes from her, and quickly vanished down the stairs.

‘Who was that?’ she whispered.

‘I told you four o’clock.’

‘It is four.’

’No—­ten minutes to at least.  It doesn’t matter, but if you had been punctual you wouldn’t have had a fright.’

Nancy had dropped into a chair, white and shaking.  Tarrant’s voice, abruptly reproachful, affected her scarcely less than the preceding shock.  In the struggle to recover herself she sobbed and choked, and at length burst into tears.  Tarrant spoke impatiently.

’What’s the matter?  Surely you are not so childish’—­

She stood up, and went into the bedroom, where she remained for several minutes, returning at length without her jacket, but with her hat still on.

’I couldn’t help it; and you shouldn’t speak to me in that way.  I have felt ill all the morning.’

Looking at her, the young man said to himself, that love was one thing, wedded life another.  He could make allowance for Nancy’s weakness—­but it was beyond his power to summon the old warmth and tenderness.  If henceforth he loved her, it must be with husband’s love—­a phrase which signified to him something as distinct as possible from the ardour he had known; a moral attachment instead of a passionate desire.

And there was another reason for his intolerant mood.

‘You hadn’t spoken to any one before you got my note?’

’No.—­Why are you treating me like this?  Are you ashamed that your friend saw me?’

‘Ashamed? not at all.’

‘Who did he think I was?’

’I don’t know.  He doesn’t know anything about you, at all events.  As you may guess, I have something not very pleasant to tell.  I didn’t mean to be unkind; it was only the surprise at seeing you when I opened the door.  I had calculated the exact time.  But never mind.  You look cold; warm yourself at the fire.  You shall drink a glass of wine; it will put your nerves right again.’

‘No, I want nothing.  Tell me at once what it is.’