"Do you guess, as he does, that my reason for going was that I might be kept aloof from all sight and sound of you and him? In the result toward which I saw you drive I could have no part."

"Stay; I know that he will go."

"You do not know. Nor do you know what such a man is when—" checking himself.

"He is in love?"

"If you choose to call it that."

"I do."

All there was to say should be said now; but I felt more agitated than was my wont. These feelings, not according with my housewifely condition, upset me. I looked at him; he began to walk about, taking up a book, which he leaned his head over, and whose covers he bent back till they cracked.

"You would read me that way," I said.

"It is rather your way of reading."

"Can you remember that Desmond and I influence each other to act alike? And that we comprehend each other without collision? I love him, as a mature woman may love,—once, Ben, only once; the fire-tipped arrows rarely pierce soul and sense, blood and brain."