'Nadège,' he said very low, 'did ever you think that it was possible that—that—she sought her own death?'
His voice faltered, and had a sound of repressed tears in it.
She looked at him in astonishment and silence. She did not ask him whom he meant.
'Sometimes,' she answered at length in a hushed voice, with a certain sense of awe. 'Sometimes—yes—I have thought so. Yes, since you ask me.'
His head drooped upon his chest; he sighed heavily. She looked at him with compassion and surprise.
'Is it possible,' she thought, 'that he never had any suspicion of it? Men are moles!'
Aloud, she said gently:
'What makes you think of it now? What can have happened?'
He did not reply for some moments. Then he answered unsteadily: