‘Last night! What, after mess? I only went home with Jack Lawless for a minute or two.’
‘Did you go home with Mr Lawless?’
‘Yes; at least—he didn’t walk home with me exactly; but he came in soon afterwards.’
‘Of course she was in bed?’
‘Oh no, she wasn’t. She was as brisk as a bee. We talked together for a long time.’
‘So I have heard! In the garden,’ remarks Mrs Dunstan pointedly.
‘Yes! Was there any harm in that?’ replies her husband. ‘Our talk was solely on business. Is anything the matter, Ethel, darling? You are not at all like yourself this morning.’
But the only answer Mrs Dunstan gives him is indicated by her suddenly rising and leaving the room. She is not the sort of woman to tell her husband frankly what she feels. She thinks—and perhaps she is right—that to openly touch so delicate a matter as a dereliction from the path of marital duty, is to add fuel to the flame. But she suffers terribly, and in her excited condition Colonel Dunstan’s open avowal appears an aggravation of his offence.
‘He is too noble to deceive me,’ she thinks, ‘and so he will take refuge in apparent frankness. He confesses he admires her, and he will tell me every time he goes there, and then he will say,—