'I understand that quite well,' said Van Torp, as she paused.
'I'm glad, then, for it makes it easier to explain the rest. I don't think I always did my best to be nice to Leven. You see, he soon grew tired of me, and went astray after strange goddesses. Still, I might have tried harder to keep him if I had cared what he did, but I was faithful to him, in my own way, and it was much [{334}] harder than you can guess, or any one. Oh, it was not any living man that made it hard—not that! It was the other. He came back—dead men do sometimes—and he told me I was his, and not Leven's wife; and I fought against that, just as if a man had made love to me in society. It didn't seem honest and true to my real husband, in my thoughts, you know, and in some things thoughts are everything. I fought with all my might against that one, that dear one. I think that was the beginning of my work—being sorry for other women who perhaps had tried to fight too, and wondering whether I should do much better if my dead man came back alive. Do you see? I'm telling you things I've hardly ever told myself, let alone any one else.'
'Yes, I see. I didn't know any one could be as good as that.'
'You can guess the rest,' Lady Maud went on, not heeding what he said. 'When I believed that Leven was dead the fight was over, and I took my dead man back, because I was really free. But now, if Leven is alive after all, it must begin again. I ought to be brave and fight against it; I must—but I can't, I can't! It's too hard, now! These two months have been the happiest in my life since the day he was killed! How can I go back again! And yet, if I cannot be an honest woman in my thoughts I'm not an honest woman at all—I'm no better than if I deserved to be divorced. I never believed in technical virtue.'
Van Torp had seen many sides of human nature, good and bad, but he had never dreamed of anything like [{335}] this, even in the clear depths of this good woman's heart, and what he heard moved him. Men born with great natures often have a tender side which the world does not dream of; call it nervousness, call it degeneracy, call it hysterical who will; it is there. While Lady Maud was finishing her poor little story in broken phrases, with her heart quivering in her voice, Mr. Rufus Van Torp's eyes became suddenly so very moist that he had to pass his hand over them hastily lest a drop or two should run down upon his flat cheeks. He hoped she would not notice it.
But she did, for at that moment she turned and looked at his face, and her own eyes were dry, though they burned. She saw that his glistened, and she looked at him in surprise.
'I'm sorry,' he said, apologising as if he had done something rude. 'I can't help it.'
Their hands were hanging near together as they walked, and hers touched his affectionately and gratefully, but she said nothing, and they went on in silence for some time before she spoke again.
'You know everything now. I must be positively sure whether Leven is alive or dead, for what I have got back in these last two months is my whole life. A mere recognition at first sight and at ten yards is not enough. It may be only a marvellous resemblance, for they say every one has a "double" somewhere in the world.'
'They used to say, too, that if you met your "double" one of you would die,' observed Van Torp. 'Those [{336}] things are all stuff and nonsense, of course. I was just thinking. Well,' he continued, dwelling on his favourite monosyllable, 'if you decide to come on the yacht, and if the man doesn't blow away, we shall know the truth in three or four days from now, and that's a comfort. And even if he turns out to be Leven, maybe we can manage something.'