“I do—sometimes,” she whispers, “but only to wonder how I could ever have cared about him at all.”
Truth is stamped on every feature of her face. Truth shines in her glance. He would be more the man if he could resist this evidence.
So, though he will not humiliate himself to his wife by acknowledging himself in the wrong, he gathers her closer to him and kisses her with the ardour of their honeymoon days.
And she is content, she wants no more than this.
“You have not asked about Trixy?” he says presently; “and I have something to tell you that will grieve you, my pet.”
But she is nestling in his clasp, and it seems to her that nothing can grieve her very much now.
“Is Trixy ill?”
“No!”
“Is she—but no—Delaval! it can’t be that Trixy is—dead!” she cries.
“Dead to you—Zai—but not really dead, unfortunately for herself. Trixy left her husband yesterday and has gone away,”—he hesitates.