“I pity you sometimes, James. My heart aches for you. You are a man—a strong, brave man, and yet you shrink and cringe when a voice whispers to you in the night. You sleep with your doubts awake. Yes, yes, I believe you when you say that you love me. I am sure that you do; but let me tell you what it is that I have divined. It is Matilde that you are loving through me. When you kiss me there is in the back of your mind somewhere the thought of kisses that were given long ago. When you hold me close to you it is the body of Matilde that you feel, it is her breath that warms your cheeks. I am Matilde, not Yvonne, to you. I am the flesh on which that starved love of yours feeds; I represent the memory of all that you have lost; I am the bodily instrument.”
“This is—madness!” he exclaimed, and it was not only wonder that filled his eyes. There was a strange fear in them, too.
“I do not expect you to admit that all this is true, James,” she went on patiently. “You will confess one day that I am right, however; to yourself, if not to me. If the time should ever come when I give to you a child———” She shivered and turned her eyes away from his.
He laid an unsteady hand upon the dark head. “There, there,” he murmured brokenly.
“It would be Matilde's child to you,” she concluded, facing him again without so much as a quaver in her voice, she spoke calmly, as if the statement were the most commonplace remark in the world.
“Good Heaven, Yvonne!” he exclaimed, drawing back in utter dismay. “You must compose yourself. This is———”
“I am quite myself, James,” she said coolly. “Can you deny that you think of her when you hold me in your arms? Can you———”
“Yes!” he almost shouted. “I can and do deny!”
“Then you are lying to yourself, my husband,” she said quietly.
He fairly gasped.