Honor was aware of nothing just then, but the keen pang of self-reproach. "God forgive me!" she murmured, forming the words with her lips. "I did it for him."
Then she started, and the blood flew to her face. For Desmond's voice, imperious, entreating, rang clear through the quiet of the house.
"Ladybird, where are you? Come back!"
And without a thought of what she intended to say, Honor went out to the completion of her day's work. That was her practical way of looking at the matter.
"It will be easy enough," she reflected as she went. The entreaty in Desmond's voice assured her of that.
But in the drawing-room doorway she stood still, extraordinarily still. For Desmond himself confronted her; and she had not anticipated the ordeal of a face-to-face encounter.
Involuntarily, inevitably, their eyes met, and lingered in each other's depths. It was their first real greeting since his return; and they felt it as such. It was the first time also that Desmond had seen her completely since his lightning-flash of self-knowledge; and in the same instant the same thought sprang to both their minds—that, in the past three weeks, the detested shade had served them better than they knew.
For a full minute it seemed as if these two, whose courage was above proof, did not dare risk movement or speech. But it was no more than a minute. Each was incapable of suspecting the other's hidden fear; and now, as always, Evelyn was the foremost thought in the minds of both.
Desmond broke the spell by one step forward.