"Poor child!... Evie——"
She looked quickly up at my change of tone.
"What?"
"I want to tell you what her object is. I don't find it easy."
"What do you mean, Jeff?" she asked, strangely abruptly.
"And I'm afraid you won't find it easy either."
She had dropped my hand. "Jeff, what do you mean?"
"I mean that she thinks she's found out—is finding out—something discreditable about me."
At first I did not understand the change, almost to horror, that came into Evie's eyes. Only after a moment almost of fear of what I saw there did I fathom her thought. I don't know how men speak who have an unfaithfulness to confess to their wives, but it flashed on me that Evie actually thought it might be that—so can pure innocence and worldly experience be pierced by the same fear.
"Jeff," she said faintly, her colour all gone, "don't you—haven't you—loved me?"