"What has come over you, childie?" he said, beginning to feel vaguely alarmed.
She had disengaged herself from his arms, and was walking away to the window.
"Oh, nothing. Only it is a pity you leave your coats about. I should never have known if you had not been so careless. At least, I fancy I have known all the winter," she added dreamily, as if to herself.
"Known what?" he asked in a voice he did not seem to recognize. But he knew; and he felt rather worse than when he had stood in the porch that afternoon, watching Joan over the fields. "What a hellish sport marriage is!" he added in a bitter undertone.
She heard him, and came back to his side.
"Digby."
"Well? I don't want you to touch me, if you would rather not," he said roughly, and did not look at her.
"I want to tell you," she went on softly. "I found Joan's letter, and I read it as a matter of course; I thought it was about—oh, never mind what. That was the day you went down to Murville; and I could not speak to you then. It has been so dreadful waiting for you to come back, Digby. Are you not going to look at me, now you have come?"
He turned round bewildered, and saw her eyes full of tears.
"Good God, Norah, do you mean you can know that, and—?"