"And now?"
She turned towards the house again, and as she walked back, said: "I don't quite know."
And Bulstrode asked her: "That is why you are here, to find out?"
"Partly."
Her companion's face grew stern. The Duchess did not see it for her eyes had again swept the upper window. At her side Bulstrode went on: "You have taken ten years to discover that you did not love your husband. You have taken one year to begin to wonder, to doubt, to suspect, to half think that you do; it's an unstable state of heart, Duchess, terribly unstable."
The woman stopped short at his side, and now as she lifted up her eyes and saw him, was a little startled if not frightened at his expression.
"Unstable," she repeated, with a world of scorn in her voice. "How can you use that word to me, knowing the facts of the case?"
"Oh, a man," said Bulstrode rather impatiently, "is a worthless, wretched piece of mechanism altogether. I grant you that—utterly unworthy the love and confidence of any good woman. He is capable of all the vagaries and infidelities possible. We'll judge him so. But," he continued, "these wandering, vagrant derelicts have been known to tie fast, to find port, to drop anchor. They have even brought great riches and important treasure into harbor, fetched a world of good luck home. There's only one thing in the universe that can keep a man, Duchess, only one."
"Well?" she encouraged him.
"A woman's heart," he said deeply, "a woman's true tenderness; and it needs all that heart, all its love, all its patience and sacrifice to keep that man—all and forever."