‘Why didn’t it come off, then?’

‘Oh, the honourable member found somebody he liked better.’

It was not the end of the conversation, but just then the conductor rose in his place and there was ‘hushing.’  Wilfrid returned at the same moment.  He noticed that Emily shivered as he put the covering on her shoulders.  When he was seated she looked at him so strangely that he asked her in a whisper what was the matter.  Emily shook her head and seemed to fix her attention on the music.

Beatrice Redwing was the third singer to come forward.  Whilst she sang Emily frequently looked at her husband.  Wilfrid did not notice it, he was absorbed in listening.  Towards the end Emily, too, lost thought of everything save the magic with which the air was charged.  There was vociferous demand for an encore and Beatrice gave another song.

When the mid-way interval was reached Emily asked her husband if he would leave the hall.  She gave no reason and Wilfrid did not question her.  When they were in the carriage she said the draught had been too severe.  Wilfrid kept silence; he was troubled by inexplicable misgivings.

Servants hastened to light the drawing-room on their arrival earlier than was expected.  Emily threw off her wraps and seated herself near the fire.

‘Do you suffer from the chill?’ Wilfrid asked, approaching her as if with diffidence.

She turned her face to him, gazing with the sadness which was so much more natural to her than the joy of two hours ago.

‘It was not the draught that made me come away,’ she said with gentle directness.  ’I must tell you what it was, Wilfrid.  I cannot keep any of my thoughts from you.’

‘Tell me,’ he murmured, standing by her.

She related the substance of the conversation she had overheard, always keeping her eyes on him.

‘Is it true?’

‘It is true, Emily.’

Between him and her there could be no paltry embarrassments.  A direct question touching both so deeply could be answered only in one way.  If Emily had suffered from a brief distrust, his look and voice, sorrowful but frank as though he faced Omniscience, restored her courage at once.  There might be grief henceforth, but it was shared between them.

He spoke on and made all plain.  Then at the last: 

’I felt it to be almost impossible that you should net some day know.  I could not tell you, perhaps on her account as much as on my own.  But now I may say what I had no words for before.  She loved me, and I believed that I could return her love.  When I met you, how could I marry her?  A stranger sees my conduct—­you have heard how.  It is you who alone can judge me.’

‘And she came to me in that way,’ Emily murmured.  ’She could not only lose you, but give her hand to the woman who robbed her!’

’And take my part with everyone, force herself to show a bright face, do her best to have it understood that it was she herself who broke off the marriage—­all this.’