Her breast heaved, her lower lip trembled. She rose suddenly, pressing her handkerchief to her mouth, and left the room. He heard the study door open hastily and shut again. And he said to himself, as if with a sudden lucid freshness, "What an extraordinary woman my wife is. If I only knew what I'd done."
As she had left her breakfast unfinished, he waited a judicious interval and then went to fetch her back.
He found her standing by the window, holding her hands tight to her heaving sides, trying by main force to control the tempest of her sobs. He approached her gently.
"Go away," she whispered, through loose lips that shook with every word. "Go away. Don't come near me."
"Nancy—what is it?"
She turned from him, and leaned up against the folded window shutter. Her emotion was the more terrible to him because she was so seldom given to these outbursts. She had seemed to him a woman passionless, and of almost superhuman self-possession. He removed himself to the hearth-rug and waited for five minutes.
"Poor child," he said at last. "Can't you tell me what it is?"
No answer.
He waited another five minutes, thinking hard.
"Was it—was it what I said about Mrs. Gardner?"