’I saw it on the hall table; I remember her writing well enough.  Just as I was looking at it Adela came in.’

‘Have you seen her since?’

Alice shook her head.  She had this way of saving words.  Richard walked on.  His first movement of alarm had passed, and now he affected to take the matter with indifference.  During the week immediately following his marriage he had been prepared for this very incident; the possibility had been one of the things he faced with a certain recklessness.  But impunity had set his mind at ease, and the news in the first instant struck him with a trepidation which a few minutes’ thought greatly allayed.  By a mental process familiar enough he at first saw the occurrence as he had seen it in the earlier days of his temptation, when his sense of honour yet gave him frequent trouble; he had to exert himself to recover his present standpoint.  At length he smiled.

‘Just like that woman,’ he said, turning half an eye on Alice.

‘If she means trouble, you’ll have it,’ returned the girl sententiously.

‘Well, it’s no doubt over by this time.’

‘Over?  Beginning, I should say,’ remarked Alice, swinging her parasol at a butterfly.

They finished their walk to the house in silence, and Richard went at once to his dressing-room.  Here he sat down.  After all, his mental disquiet was not readily to be dismissed; it even grew as he speculated and viewed likelihoods from all sides.  Probably Kate had made a complete disclosure.  How would it affect Adela?

You must not suppose that his behaviour in the case of the man Rendal had argued disregard for Adela’s opinion of him.  Richard was incapable of understanding how it struck his wife, that was all.  If he reflected on the matter, no doubt he was very satisfied with himself, feeling that he had displayed a manly resolution and consistency.  But the present difficulty was grave.  Whatever Adela might say, there could be no doubt as to her thought; she would henceforth—­yes, despise him.  That cut his thick skin to the quick; his nature was capable of smarting when thus assailed.  For he had by no means lost his early reverence for Adela; nay, in a sense it had increased.  His primitive ideas on woman had undergone a change since his marriage.  Previously he had considered a wife in the light of property; intellectual or moral independence he could not attribute to her.  But he had learnt that Adela was by no means his chattel.  He still knew diffidence when he was inclined to throw a joke at her, and could not take her hand without involuntary respect—­a sensation which occasionally irritated him.  A dim inkling of what was meant by woman’s strength and purity had crept into his mind; he knew—­in his heart he knew—­that he was unworthy to touch her garment.  And, to face the whole truth, he all but loved her; that was the meaning of his mingled sentiments with regard to her.  A danger of losing her in the material