“You have ceased to love him, then?”
“Absolutely ceased.”
Geoffrey had paused now near the window, and was looking out. She could guess of what he was thinking; of that walk in the spring woods, and the girl who had said that to be unhappy with the man she loved would be happiness. He was thinking that he had tried to give her happiness and that he had failed. And presently, without turning, he said, “May I ask why?”
The thought of the spring day dwelt with her, infusing all the present tragedy with a tender, an exquisite pathos—like the spring’s—like the day of distant bird-songs and melancholy brooks. She owed him everything. Might he ask?
“What may you not ask?” she said. “There is nothing that I have a right to keep from you now. This is why. Lady Angela showed me this—yesterday.” Without turning her head she held out the letter. “It was written, you will see, the day after you and I walked together—when you told me that you loved me—when I told you that I loved him.”
Geoffrey’s hand was on the letter. For a moment, as her memory chimed with his, he grasped her wrist and she felt his kiss upon her hand.
He did not know. In the silence that followed, while, behind her chair, he read, Felicia was wondering, wondering—would he discover it? Should she hide it? Should she tell him? Was it not indeed his right to be told? Did she not owe it to him to let him know that a reward—though such a tragically belated one—had at last come to him? Even to hesitate seemed to smirch him with that fear of disillusion; or, her mind followed it further, hunted it down, while she breathed quickly—was it the possible rapture that made the real dread—the rapture of seeing him claim her and of admitting his claim? With an almost lassitude she thrust the balancing thoughts from her. How could she know what she felt or what she was, until the truth was there spoken and looked at between them? The circle had brought her back again to the first question. Should she tell him? She could not answer it. She closed her eyes. Suddenly she thought sharply, “I must not tell.” She wondered if it was an inspiration; it seemed to have no sequence. So oddly does the most logical thing in life, the rewarding illumination of a conscience and character strengthened by strife, dazzle the obviously linked, the bewildered and bewildering intelligence. Like the revolving light of an unseen lighthouse it flashed out. A moment after it seemed unreal. Yet the memory of it would almost automatically guide a way among reefs and breakers and siren whirlpools. Felicia did not think all this. She kept her eyes closed and breathed more quietly. Geoffrey stood silent, and she knew, without looking round, that he had finished the letter.
“Now you see. Now you understand all,” she said.
He made no answer. She opened her eyes, turned in her chair. He had mastered any horror, though his expression had the strained look of having been wrenched from horror to the resolute facing of a mystery to be tracked. He seemed to gaze through her at it.
“Now you see. Now you understand,” she repeated. “I do, Geoffrey.”