She burst into tears. "Are you speaking at all for yourself? Do you wish this?" she murmured.
"No."
"Then how can you be so cruel?"
"I should have thought it unjustifiably cruel, but that it has been suggested to me. Tell me the truth, Maude."
Maude was turning sick with apprehension. She had begun to like her husband during the latter part of their sojourn in London; had missed him terribly during this long period of lonely ennui at Hartledon; and his tender kindness to her for the past few fleeting hours of this their meeting had seemed like heaven as compared with the solitary past. Her whole heart was in her words as she answered:
"When we first married I did not care for you; I almost think I did not like you. Everything was new to me, and I felt as one in an unknown sea. But it wore off; and if you only knew how I have thought of you, and wished for you here, you would never have said anything so cruel. You are my husband, and you cannot put me from you. Percival, promise me that you will never hint at this again!"
He bent and kissed her. His course lay plain before him; and if an ugly mountain rose up before his mind's eye, shadowing forth not voluntary but forced separation, he would not look at it in that moment.
"What could mamma mean?" she asked. "I shall ask her."
"Maude, oblige me by saying nothing about it. I have already warned Lady Kirton that it must not be repeated; and I am sure it will not be. I wish you would also oblige me in another matter."
"In anything," she eagerly said, raising her tearful eyes to his. "Ask me anything."