Here, in some likeness, was that same moment, in the broad light of day with him beside her and the crisp heather roots beneath their feet. It was almost a physical effort in her throat that gave her strength to say--
"I expect your wife's a very wonderful woman."
She meant him to realize that in her thoughts it was through his wife he had become possessed of such knowledge about women; that there was his wife; that she was there between them; that if he had for the instant forgotten her, she had not. It was as though, in a violent muscular effort, Mary had seized her by the wrist and jerked her into step with them. Almost was she catching for her breath when she had done it.
"My wife is a wonderful woman," said he quietly. "She has as big a heart as all this stretch of acres and that breadth of sea, but to-day is her to-morrow. I didn't learn about the spiritual ideals of women from her."
"Where did you learn it then?" asked Mary.
"Now you're asking me something I couldn't possibly tell you," said he, and then he smiled. He had seen the look leap slanting across her eyes as she thought of the other woman who had taught him.
"Because," he added--"I don't know."
V
If it were Fanny who first had sense of what was happening, it was Jane who, when she discovered it, spoke out her mind about the matter.
Fanny knew by instinct, long before the first suspicions had fermented her elder sister's thoughts. She detected a sharper, brighter look in Mary's eyes; she calculated a greater distance in Mary's meditative glance.