"I had just posted a letter to you before I came out," he said. They were at the end of the last row of seats and could talk, before the music began, without any fear of being overheard. "It is as I expected, Lettice. There are great difficulties in our way."
She looked an interrogation.
"The length of time that has elapsed is an obstacle. We cannot find any proof of worse things than drunkenness and brawling during the last year or two. And of the events before that time, when I know that she was untrue to me, we scarcely see how to obtain absolute proof. You must forgive me for mentioning these things to you, but I am obliged."
"Yes, and there is no reason why you should not tell me everything," she said, turning her quiet eyes upon him with a look of such perfect trust that the tumult in Alan's mind was suddenly stilled. "But you knew that there would be difficulties. Is there anything else?"
"I hardly know how to tell you. She has done what I half expected her to do—she has brought a counter charge against me—against——"
"Ah, I understand. All the more, reason, Alan, why we should fight it out."
"My love," he said, in the lowest possible tone that could reach her ears, "if you knew how it grieves me that you should suffer!"
"But I am suffering with you," she answered tenderly; "and don't you think that I would rather do that than see you bear your suffering alone?"
Here the first notes of the orchestra fell upon their ear, and the conversation had to cease. For the next hour or so they had scarcely time to do more than interchange a word or two, but they sat side by side rapt in a strange content. The music filled their veins with intoxicating delight; it was of a kind that Lettice rejoiced in exceedingly, and that Alan loved without quite knowing why. The Tannhauser Overture, the Walküren-Ritt, two of Schubert's loveliest songs, and the less exciting but more easily comprehensible productions of an earlier classical composer, were the chief items of the first part of the concert. Then came an interval, after which the rest of the afternoon would be devoted to the Choral Symphony. But during this interval Alan hastened to make the most of his opportunity.
"We shall have a bitter time," he murmured in her ear, feeling, nevertheless, that nothing was bitter which would bring him eventually to her side.