"How do you do, my dear Dean?" said Ashe, enclosing the frail, ascetic hand in both his own. "I trust I have not kept you waiting. My mother was with me. Sit there, please; you will have the light behind you."
"Thank you. I prefer standing a little, if you don't mind—and I like the fire."
Ashe threw himself into a chair and shaded his eyes with his hand. The Dean noticed the strains of gray in his curly hair, and that aspect, as of something withered and wayworn, which had invaded the man's whole personality, balanced, indeed, by an intellectual dignity and distinction which had never been so commanding. It was as though the stern and constant wrestle of the mind had burned away all lesser things—the old, easy grace, the old, careless pleasure in life.
"I think you know," began the Dean, clearing his throat, "why I asked you to see me?"
"You wished, I think, to speak to me—about my wife," said Ashe, with difficulty.
Under his sheltering hand, his eyes looked straight before him into the fire.
The Dean fidgeted a moment, lifted a small Greek vase on the mantel-piece, and set it down—then turned round.
"I heard from her ten days ago—the most piteous letter. As you know, I had always a great regard for her. The news of last year was a sharp sorrow to me—as though she had been a daughter. I felt I must see her. So I put myself into the train and went to Venice."
Ashe started a little, but said nothing.
"Or, rather, to Treviso, for, as I think you know, she is there with Lady Alice."