Millie raised her eyes to him in wonder. He did not mean to kill her, then. All his violence, it seemed, was reserved for that poor warrior of the drawing-rooms who had just been carried away stunned and bleeding from the terrace. When Tony spoke to her his voice was rather that of a man very dispirited and sad. He had indeed travelled through the mountains of Morocco hot with anger against Callon the interloper; but now that he had come face to face again with Millie, now that he had heard her voice with its remembered accents, the interloper seemed of little account, a creature to punish and be done with. The sadness of his voice penetrated to Millie's heart. She rose and stood submissively before him.
In the passage outside the door the waiters were clustered whispering together. Tony closed the door and shut the whispers out. Upon the terrace, outside the window, a man was hesitating whether to enter or no. Tony went to the window.
"Who are you?" he asked. "What do you want?"
"I am Giraud, the schoolmaster of Roquebrune," said the man, timidly. "I bring a letter from Mademoiselle Mardale."
"Let me see it!" said Tony; and he held out his hand for the letter. He glanced at the superscription and gave it back. "It is not for me," he said, and M. Giraud went away from the terrace. Tony turned back to his wife. His mind was full of a comparison between the ways in which he and she had each spent the years of absence. For him they had been years of endeavour, persisted in through failure and perplexity until success, but for her, was reached. And how had Millie spent them? He looked at her sternly, and she said again in a faltering voice--
"I am innocent, Tony."
And he replied--
"Could you have said as much to-morrow had I not come back to-night?"
Millie had no answer to that question--she attempted none; and it was even at that moment counted to her credit by her husband. She stood silent for a while, and only the murmur of the sea breaking upon the beach filled the room. A light wind breathed through the open window, cool and fragrant, and made the shaded candles flicker upon the table. Millie had her one poor excuse to offer, and she pleaded it humbly.
"I thought that you had ceased to care what became of me," she said.