Later, when the illness had left him, he had said less, had been reserved in his references to Faunce, and he knew that on his landing in New York he had refrained from describing the details of his narrow escape from death. It was a chance, perhaps, that he had not betrayed more, and he was thankful—thankful that, so far at least, he had spared Diane; for Diane, as Faunce’s wife, must be the one to suffer.
But could he do more to spare her? His mind was confused with the horror of it. The loss of the woman he loved was bad enough, but to see her the wife of such a man!
It was significant that even in that moment of despair his thought was for her, and not for himself. He must shield her if he could. He must save, if he could, her faith in the wretched man she had married; for, if she loved Faunce, it would be the shipwreck of her life to see him dishonored and exposed.
Presently he heard her returning, followed by the maid with the tea-tray and the samovar. They came in together. Diane had removed her hat and coat, and in her simple house-gown, her brown hair rumpled by the wind, she looked almost as when Overton had seen her last. There was the same delicate color in her cheeks, the same elusive charm in her soft eyes under their straight, thick lashes, the same white throat and brow, and yet how changed she was! He saw it when she made tea for him and raised her eyes as she handed him the cup.
“You’ll have to take cream and sugar,” she said with forced lightness. “We’re truly ‘twelve miles from a lemon’ here!”
He took the cup with a smile, and sat down in a low chair by her tea-table. The little maid threw another log on the fire and vanished. For a moment there was no sound in the room but the crackle of the flame as it licked up the dry bark of the new log. He looked at it thoughtfully as he absently tasted his tea.
“It’s good to see a fire again. I don’t believe I’ll ever get past the joy of feeling warm!” He forced a laugh. “Do you remember that late autumn when we were all on the shore in Connecticut, and you and I gathered driftwood?”
“Yes, and it was beautiful. What flames shot out! And have you forgotten Mrs. Price and the ghost-story?”
They both laughed.
“She thought it wasn’t scriptural! How’s Fanny? She was in school when I left.”