"Do you know?" she asked.
"Yes, I know. And, because I know, I tell you that you're a wife any man might thank God for."
Mrs. Dennison laughed; and Tom started at the jarring sound. Yet it was not a sound of mirth.
"You had temptations most of us haven't—yes, and a nature most of us haven't. And here you are. So,"—he rose from his chair and took her hand that drooped beside her, and bent his head and kissed it—"though I love Adela with all my heart, still I kiss your hand as your true and grateful servant, as I used to be in old days."
Tom stopped; he had said his say, and his voice had grown tremulous in the saying. Yet he had done it; he had told her what he felt; and he prayed that it might comfort her in the trouble that had lined her forehead and made her eyes sad.
Mrs. Dennison did not glance at him. For a moment she sat quite silent. Then she said,
"Thanks, Tom," and pressed his hand.
Then she suddenly sat up in her chair and held her hand out before her, and whispered to him words that he hardly heard.
"If you knew," she said, "you wouldn't kiss it; you'd spit on it."
Tom stood, silently, suddenly, wretchedly conscious that he did not know what he ought to do. Then he blurted out,