"What is the matter? Is she ill?"
I shook my head.
"No," I said, "she is not ill."
"Where is she, then?"
"She is not ill," I said, again, "but—she is not here."
And then I told him.
He heard me out in dead silence, never moving so much as a finger, only growing whiter as I went on. Then, when I had done, he went over to the window, and remained standing with his back towards me for some minutes.
"And you?" he said, presently, still without turning his head. "And you—through all these weeks—you never saw or suspected anything?"
"I feared—I was not sure—"
He turned upon me with a terrible pale anger in his face.