"Is that all?" she questioned. In her eyes was the whimsical challenge that had, on the previous occasion, swept me away from my moorings. The question that I had asked myself once before came back to my mind. Could it be that my goddess was so far from my ideal that, after all, what had occurred needed no explanation? I would not admit such a possibility, and yet her next words seemed to confirm it.
"When I first came here," she mused reflectively and only half-aloud, "you stayed outside for an hour, and then you disappeared. Of course you were a prisoner, but to-day you had the opportunity to see us. You didn't—and yet—" she flushed deeply, and I knew that her thoughts too were going back to the moment when I had, without words, avowed myself so savagely.
"I stayed out there that night," I said bluntly, "because I could hardly be an interloper, when you had ridden these infernal hills to be with him—" I jerked my head savagely toward the bed. Then I went doggedly on, determined that since she had forced me this far we should hereafter stand in the certain light of understanding. "I also stayed out there because, as it happens, I'm a fool. I couldn't endure witnessing a reunion between yourself and your husband." It seemed to me that she should first have called on me for other explanations.
At the last word her face clouded with an expression of absolute bewilderment, and her eyes widened as she gazed at me.
"My—my what?" she demanded.
"Your husband," I repeated. "Mr. Weighborne."
She contemplated me as though I were a new and rather interesting variety of maniac, then her laugh was long and delicious. Her clouded eyes cleared and danced like skies in which the sun has suddenly burst through rain.
"Oh," she said finally. "I understand now." Once more her face grew grave and she added with a catch in her voice.
"And, thank God, I do understand."
"For Heaven's sake," I implored, "tell me what you understand! As for me, I understand nothing."