"Will you leave me alone," she said, "to think it over? Will you give me three hours?"
He stared and turned pale; for, this time, he understood.
"Certainly," he said coldly, rising and taking out his watch. "It's twelve now."
"At three, then?"
They met at three o'clock. Anne had spent one hour of bewilderment out of doors, two hours of hard praying and harder thinking in her room.
Her mind was made up. However notorious her husband had been, between him and her there was to be no open rupture. She was not going to leave him, to appeal to him for a separation, to deny him any right. Not that she was moved by a profound veneration for the legal claim. Marriage was to her a matter of religion even more than of law. And though, at the moment, she could no longer discern its sacramental significance through the degraded aspect it now wore for her, she surrendered on the religious ground. The surrender would be a martyrdom. She was called upon to lay down her will, but not to subdue the deep repugnance of her soul.
Protection lay for her in Walter's chivalry, as she well knew. But she would not claim it. Chastened and humbled, she would take up her wedded life again. There was no vow that she would not keep, no duty she would not fulfil. And she would remain in her place of peace, building up between them the ramparts of the spiritual life.
Meanwhile she gave him credit for his attitude.
"Things can never be as they were between us," she said. "That you cannot expect. But—"
He listened with his eyes fixed on hers, accepting from her his destiny. She reddened.