Again, with a gesture, she negatived his suggestion. "He'd never have doubted that I would know he had died loving me."
"Then why did he send me?"
Even while he asked it, he marveled at his certainty that she shared his conviction that he had been sent.
She turned her eyes full on his face and let them dwell there searchingly. As he returned her gaze, he noted that she was less young than he had supposed. She was older than her portrait. Her hair, which had looked night-black in the shadows, was prematurely frosted. The moonlight, strengthening, picked out remorselessly each silver thread. She was no longer capable of putting back the hands of time for any man.
She had read his thoughts. The pride went out of her voice. "Perhaps he sent you," she faltered, "that he might give me back a little of what he took."
"What did he take? Anything that I have——"
She leant back in her chair. Her face was again in shadow. "My youth. My happiness."
In the silence which followed he was aware that the third presence had departed.
IX
"Your youth! Your happiness!" He was astounded. "Strange that you should say that! I thought that I alone was searching."