His tone was not altogether suave; about his nostrils there was a suspicion of defiance.  He forced himself to meet her gaze steadily; the effort killed a smile.

‘We will cease to speak of them,’ Beatrice answered, implying a distinction.

A minute later he saw’ that she laid down her pen and rose.  He looked up inquiringly.

‘I don’t feel able to do anything this morning,’ she said.

Wilfrid made no reply.  She went to the chair on which her hat and mantle lay.

‘You are not going?’ he asked, in a tone of surprise.

‘I think so; I can’t be of use to you,’ she added, impulsively; ’I have not your confidence.’

He let her throw the mantle over her shoulders.

‘Beatrice, surely this is not the result of such a trifle?  Look!’ He pulled open the drawer once more and threw the pocket-hook on to the table.  ’Suppose that had lain there when you came into this room alone.  Should you have opened it and examined the contents?’

‘I should not—­you know it.’

’Very well.  You would simply have taken it for granted that I was to be trusted to look after my own affairs, until I asked someone else’s aid or advice.  Is not that the case at present?’

A man more apt at dissimulation would have treated the matter from the first with joking irony, and might have carried his point, though with difficulty.  Wilfrid had not the aptitude, to begin with, and he was gravely disturbed.  His pulses were throbbing; scarcely could he steady his voice.  He dreaded a disclosure of what might well be regarded as throwing doubt upon his sincerity, the more so that he understood in this moment how justifiable such a doubt would be.  After the merriment of a few minutes ago, this sudden shaking of his nerves was the harder to endure.  It revived with painful intensity the first great agitations of his life.  His way of speaking could not but confirm Beatrice’s suspicions.

‘We are not exactly strangers to each other,’ she said, coldly.

’No, we are not; yet I think I should have forborne to press you on any matter you thought it needless to speak of.’

She put on her hat.  Wilfrid felt his anger rising—­our natural emotion when we are disagreeably in the wrong, yet cannot condemn the cause which has made us so.  He sat to the table again, as if his part in the discussion were at an end.

Beatrice stood for some moments, then came quickly to his side.

‘Wilfrid, have you secrets from me?’ she asked, the tremor of her voice betraying the anguish that her suspicions cost her.  ’Say I am ill-mannered.  It was so, at first; I oughtn’t to have said anything.  But now it has become something different.  However trifling the matter, I can’t bear that you should refuse to treat me as yourself.  There is nothing, nothing I could keep from you.  I have not a secret in my life to hide from you.  It is not because they are letters—­or not only that.  You put a distance between us you say there are affairs of yours in which I have no concern.  I cannot bear that!  If I leave you, I shall suffer more than you dream.  I thought we were one.  Is not your love as complete as mine?’