CHAPTER XL
They had come back. They had spent their first evening together in the house in Prior Street. Anne had dreaded the return; for the house remembered its sad secrets. She had dreaded it more on her husband's account than on her own.
She had passed before him through the doorway of the study; and her heart had ached as she thought that it was in that room that she had struck at him and put him from her. As he entered, she had turned, and closed the door behind them, and lifted her face to his and kissed him. He had looked at her with his kind, sad smile, but he had said nothing. All that evening they had sat by their hearth, silent as watchers by the dead.
From time to time she had been aware of his eyes resting on her in their profound and tragic scrutiny. She had been reminded then of the things that yet remained unsaid.
At night he had risen at her signal; and she had waited while he put the light out; and he had followed her upstairs. At her door she had stopped, and kissed him, and said good-night, and she had turned her head to look after him as he went. Surely, she had thought, he will come back and speak to me.
And now she was still waiting after her undressing. She said to herself, "We have come home. But he will not come to me. He has nothing to say to me. There is nothing that can be said. If I could only speak to him."
She longed to go to him, to kneel at his feet and beg him to forgive her and take her back again, as if it had been she who had sinned. But she could not.
She stood for a moment before the couch at the foot of the bed, ready to slip off her long white dressing-gown. She paused. Her eyes rested on the silver crucifix, the beloved symbol of redemption. She remembered how he had given it to her. She had not understood him even then; but she understood him now. She longed to tell him that she understood. But she could not.
She turned suddenly as she heard his low knock at her door. She had been afraid to hear it once; now it made her heart beat hard with longing and another fear. He came in. He stood by the closed door, gazing at her with the dumb look that she knew.
She went to meet him, with her hands out-stretched to him, her face glowing.