But his visitor did not rise. On the contrary she said, with warmth, "Yes, I quite see that, but..." She bit her lip. "If you knew, you would not be so punctilious, Mr. Dormer. Will you not let me tell you?"
"Really," said Dormer, hesitating a trifle, "I hardly know what to say, but I would much rather not be the recipient of any confidences. Surely, Madam, the matter is not so pressing but that you can wait for Tristram's return."
Horatia laughed rather bitterly.
"Mr. Dormer, you need not be so much afraid. We will not speak of Tristram then. If you will tell me your own views on the subject it will be quite enough. It is not easy for me to come to you—you must know that! I only do it because ... O, well, that does not matter."
Dormer sat down with a resigned sigh by the side of the table, and said briefly, "Please tell me anything you wish."
"Thank you," said Horatia; collected herself and started. "I am afraid I must trouble you with some personal details. You probably know that a good many years ago Tristram asked me to marry him. I was singularly young and foolish, and I refused him. You may also know that, as I have learnt quite recently, he was on the verge of asking me again in the autumn of 1830." Dormer inclined his head. "What my answer would have been I do not know. But shortly afterwards I married my late husband. Our marriage was an unhappy one."
Here she came to a full stop, and got no help from her listener, who was looking down at an ink-pot.
"It was largely my own fault, but I have suffered, and if ever anyone wanted to forget the past I have wanted to forget it." For a second her voice trembled, then it recovered. "In my old home again, with my father, it seemed sometimes as if I should succeed. And although Tristram was changed, yet he was the same, and latterly it has seemed to me that he was indeed the same, and that ... it is very difficult for me to tell you..."
Dormer looked up. "I think I can understand," he said, with something different in his voice.
"Thank you. I was right ... and I was wrong. I cannot explain it, but I must just ask you to believe that I was not utterly blinded by vanity, and on the other hand that Tristram did and said nothing that could not be accounted for by his long and extraordinary friendship."