She related the substance of the conversation she had overheard, always keeping her eyes on him.
'Is it true?'
'It is true, Emily.'
Between him and her there could be no paltry embarrassments. A direct question touching both so deeply could be answered only in one way. If Emily had suffered from a brief distrust, his look and voice, sorrowful but frank as though he faced Omniscience, restored her courage at once. There might be grief henceforth, but it was shared between them.
He spoke on and made all plain. Then at the last:
'I felt it to be almost impossible that you should net some day know. I could not tell you, perhaps on her account as much as on my own. But now I may say what I had no words for before. She loved me, and I believed that I could return her love. When I met you, how could I marry her? A stranger sees my conduct—you have heard how. It is you who alone can judge me.'
'And she came to me in that way,' Emily murmured. 'She could not only lose you, but give her hand to the woman who robbed her!'
'And take my part with everyone, force herself to show a bright face, do her best to have it understood that it was she herself who broke off the marriage—all this.'
'Dare I go to her, Wilfrid? Would it be cruel to go to her? I wish to speak—oh, not one word that would betray my knowledge, but to say that I love her. Do you think I may go?'
'I cannot advise you, Emily. Wait until the morning and do then what you think best.'