Was not this the best? It was too wonderful to be true; too wonderful to last. He knew himself well enough to realize that any prolonged deception with his wife would be impossible. He had the honesty of his emotions; the courage of his thoughts. He could not practice deception with any ease. Wonderful as it was, could any wonder compensate for the utter wrecking of his home? It was not as though in the wonder that had come to her, she refused to recognize his wife. That was what brought him such amaze of her. Any other woman he would have expected to be jealous, exacting, cruel. She appeared to be none of these.
What, in the name of God, was it she wanted? The sudden wish to understand, the sudden curiosity to find out communicated with the energy in his fingers. He tore up the note he had written and flung the pieces away, sending back the messenger without a reply.
It was playing with life, a sport that in other men earned for them his deepest contempt. It was playing with life, yet the call to it was greater than he could or cared to resist.
At half-past eleven, he went down to the beach where all the inhabitants of Bridnorth sat and whiled away their time till the midday meal, and there he found her, dressed with more care and more effect than she had ever been before. She was lying down under the warm shade of a brilliantly colored parasol and, as he approached her, it seemed to him that there was a deeper beauty in her then than in any other woman in the world.
"Why this?" he said as he sat down. "Here of all places? Do you know very nearly I didn't come?"
"Yes, I was afraid of that," she replied. "Afraid for a moment. Not really afraid. But I couldn't explain in my note."
"What is it then?"
"We were seen yesterday."
"Who by?"
"My sister--Jane."