Three quarters of an hour later she was dressed and descending the stairs, and as she entered the library dinner was announced.  Let us spare Honora the account of that repast or rather a recital of the conversation that accompanied it.  What she found to say under the eyes of the servants is of little value, although the fact itself deserves to be commended as a high accomplishment; and while she talked, she studied the brooding mystery that he presented, and could make nothing of it.  His mood was new.  It was not sullenness, nor repressed rage; and his answers were brief, but he was not taciturn.  It struck her that in spite of a concentration such as she had never in her life bestowed on any other subject, her knowledge of him of the Chiltern she had married—­was still wofully incomplete, and that in proportion to the lack of perfection of that knowledge her danger was great.  Perhaps the Chiltern she had married was as yet in a formative state.  Be this as it may, what she saw depicted on his face to-night corresponded to no former experience.

They went back to the library.  Coffee was brought and carried off, and Honora was standing before the fire.  Suddenly he rose from his chair, crossed the room, and before she could draw away seized and crushed her in his arms without a word.  She lay there, inert, bewildered as in the grip of an unknown force, until presently she was aware of the beating of his heart, and a glimmering of what he felt came to her.  Nor was it an understandable thing, except to the woman who loved him.  And yet and yet she feared it even in that instant of glory.

When at last she dared to look up, he kissed away the tears from her cheeks.

“I love you,” he said.  “You must never doubt it—­do you understand?”

“Yes, Hugh.”

“You must never doubt it,” he repeated roughly.

His contrition was a strange thing—­if it were contrition.  And love —­woman’s love—­is sometimes the counsellor of wisdom.  Her sole reproach was to return his kiss.

Presently she chose a book, and he read to her.

CHAPTER XV

THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY

One morning, as he gathered up his mail, Chiltern left lying on the breakfast table a printed circular, an appeal from the trustees of the Grenoble Hospital.  As Honora read it she remembered that this institution had been the favourite charity of his mother; and that Mrs. Chiltern, at her death, had bequeathed an endowment which at the time had been ample.  But Grenoble having grown since then, the deficit for this year was something under two thousand dollars, and in a lower corner was a request that contributions be sent to Mrs. Israel Simpson.

With the circular in her hand, Honora went thoughtfully up the stairs to her sitting-room.  The month was February, the day overcast and muggy, and she stood for a while apparently watching the holes made in the snow by the steady drip from the cap of the garden wall.  What she really saw was the face of Mrs. Israel Simpson, a face that had haunted her these many months.  For Mrs. Simpson had gradually grown, in Honora’s mind, to typify the hardness of heart of Grenoble.  With Grenoble obdurate, what would become of the larger ambitions of Hugh Chiltern?