"And yet you told me," he said. "Why?"
She could not answer him, nor could she raise her face. He was not angry, she knew now; but yet she felt that she could not meet his eyes.
There was a short silence, then he spoke again, close to her ear:
"You need not have told me, Naomi."
The words amazed her. With a great start of bewilderment she lifted her head and looked at him. He put his hands upon her shoulders. She thought she saw a smile hovering about his lips, but it was of a species she had never seen there before.
"Because," he explained gently, "I knew."
She stared at him in wonder, scarcely breathing, the tears all gone from her eyes.
"You—knew!" she said slowly, at last.
"Yes, I knew," he said. He looked deep into her eyes for seconds, and then she felt him drawing her irresistibly to him. She yielded herself as driftwood yields to a racing flood, no longer caring for the interpretation of the riddle, scarcely remembering its existence; heard him laugh above her head—a brief, exultant laugh—as he clasped her. And then came his lips upon her own....
"You see, dear," he said later, a quiver that was not all laughter in his voice, "it is not so remarkably wonderful, after all, that I should know all about it, when you come to consider that I was there—there with you in the magic circle all the time."