'This is the letter she wrote me. I found it in my room.'
And he drew out the crumpled letter from his pocket-book, which he had worn thus almost from the day of Phoebe's disappearance.
Eugénie fell upon it, devoured it. Not a demur, not a doubt, as to this!—in one so strictly, so tenderly scrupulous. Even at that moment, it struck him pitifully. It seemed to give the measure of her pain.
'The picture?' she said, looking up—'I don't understand—you had sent it in.'
'Do you remember—asking me about the sketch? and I told you—it had been accidentally spoilt?'
She understood. Her lips trembled. Returning the letter, she sank upon a seat. He saw that her forces were almost failing her. And he dared not say a word or make a movement of sympathy.
For some little time she was silent. Her eyes ranged the green circuit of the hollow—the water, the reeds, the rock, and that idle god among his handmaidens. Her attitude, her look expressed a moral agony, how strangely out of place amid this setting! Through her—innocent, unconscious though she were—the young helpless wife had come to grief—a soul had been risked—perhaps lost. Only a nature trained as Eugénie's had been, by suffering and prayer and lofty living, could have felt what she felt, and as she felt it.
Fumbling, Fenwick put back the letter in his pocket-book—thrust it again into his coat. Never once did the thought cross Eugénie's mind that he had probably worn it there, through these last days, while their relation had grown so intimate, so dear. All recollection of herself had left her. She was possessed with Phoebe. Nothing else found entrance.
At last, after much more questioning—much more difficult or impetuous examination—she rose feebly.
'I think I understand. Now—we have to find her!'