"I never was really afraid till now."
"What you're afraid of couldn't happen. You can put that out of your head for ever. If I could mention you in the same sentence as that woman you should know why I am so certain. As it is, I must ask you again to take my word for it."
He paused.
"But, since you have raised the question—and it's interesting, too—I knew a man once—not a 'bad' man—to whom that very thing did happen. And it didn't mean that he'd left off caring for his wife. On the contrary, he was still insanely fond of her."
"What did it mean, then?"
"That she'd left off showing that she cared for him. And he cared more for her, that man, after having left her, than he did before. In its way it was a sort of test."
"I pray heaven—" said Anne; but she was too greatly shocked by the anecdote to shape her prayer.
Majendie, feeling that the time, the place, and her mood were propitious for the exposition, went on.
"There's another man I know. He was very fond of Edie. He's fond of her still. He'll come and sit for hours playing backgammon with her. And yet all his fondness for her hasn't kept him entirely straight. But he'd have been as straight as anybody if he could have married her."
"But what does all this prove?"