He finds his wife, who has evidently not been to bed all night, in her sitting-room, with pale wan face and eyes strained with tears and frightened watching.
"Oh, here you are!" she sobs hysterically, when he enters at last. "Where have you been? I thought you were never coming home again. You—you should not have frightened me so!"
"I am sorry I frightened you, Addie," he says gently. "I walked on to Sandyfort last night, had a swim there, and then came back; the morning was so lovely, I couldn't take to the train. Why did you sit up? That was wrong."
She makes no reply, but presently creeps up to him and lays her hand on his shoulder, stammering out—
"You—you came to the door of the dressing-room? You—you heard me last night?"
He assents mutely.
"Then, Tom," she cries, clinging to him feverishly, "you must forget every word I said; they meant nothing—nothing! I don't know what came over me. I was not myself; I think I was mad. You—you—"
"Don't, dear, don't," he says, with a still cold gentleness, putting her from him; "it is of no use. You can never deceive me again, Addie—never! Give up the effort; it would be only useless pain to me and to you."
"I can not—I can not!" she answers, with a quiver in her voice; for something in his face, in his tone, chills her to the heart and tells her, even more powerfully than his words have done, that he will never believe her again; that smiles or tears, protest or prayer, will fall on his ear in vain meaningless sound. "I can not," she repeats, "because you are mistaken. You must—oh, you must listen to me! I tell you it is not fair to judge; I was not myself at the moment, I was—"
"You were not the 'self' who sacrificed your youth and your liberty so loyally to me at the moment. No; you had cast your chains aside and were inhaling a breath of freedom—unhallowed freedom, you poor little bird," he says with dreary sadness—"and I scared you, Addie. You must let your wings grow again, you must go back to your careless happy maidenhood, get clear of the shadow I brought on your path."