“I have been very happy—with Caryl,” she answered in a whisper.
“Yes. But while you were at the Mill-house you had to suffer a great deal, both from my wife and from me. Between the two of us the situation, for a girl, must have been almost unendurable. But for your feeling for Caryl you could not have borne it.”
“That’s all over now,” she said in a stifled voice. “I can remember only the best part of it, your kindness, and Lady Sarah’s brilliant charm.”
A shadow passed over his face.
“Yes,” he said solemnly. “That’s what I like to recollect. The best, the brightest side.” He paused and then said abruptly:
“I’m afraid I was rather brutal to you on that last night, the terrible night.”
Rhoda drew a long breath.
“Brutal! Oh, no. You couldn’t be that. You were cold, you even seemed hard, but it was because you were not yourself, you were—overwhelmed.”
He listened in silence, and there was a pause. They still walked along the winding path, where there was just room for two, side by side.
“It wasn’t exactly that,” he said. “I have a confession to make, a terrible confession.”