Faint mists rose in wreaths and floated in gossamer folds about the trunks of the trees, and at times above their forms. The whole scene had a meaning of sad regrets.
Cherokee broke the silence:
“I wonder what keeps Robert so long; it must be nine o’clock.”
“Don’t be uneasy, he is doubtless with some congenial companion.” Then, almost before he knew it, Marrion asked:
“Did you know that Robert was dissipated before you married him?”
He felt himself tremble, as if he intruded where she knelt. As intimately as he had known her, yet he never before had dared approach her inner life so nearly.
“Tell me all,” he said. “If ever a heart could open to a friend, now must that door unclose.”
“No. I didn’t believe it; I should have never married him if I had known. I made a mistake. A Southern girl should only marry one of her kind; he alone could understand and appreciate her nature.”
It was not prompted by accidental harmony, this answer, she felt he had a right to know all: