He did not answer, though his arms tightened about her as though he would have crushed the thing he loved.
“You are unhappy—and I have made you so!”
“It can’t be helped,” he said bitterly.
She did not say anything more and, after a moment, drew herself up and out of his arms. Not for a long while did they speak to each other, until the supper was over and the fire had been built for the night. Instead of stretching out on the rug in feline languor, she began to move restlessly about the room, with an indecision that was strange to her. He watched her through the sheltering clouds of tobacco smoke as she went from window to window, listening to something that cried in the soughing chorus of the tempestuous night without, and, as he watched her, he wondered if the day would close thus in this aching unease, this numbed suffering that wrapped them around and yet held them remorselessly from each other. She came to the fireplace and abruptly faced him, her hands behind her back, pain and wistfulness in the anxious searching glance she laid upon him.
“I told you a lie,” she said, all at once. He raised his eyes and looked at her. “About that letter,” she said hastily.
“Yes; I know.”
“You knew, of course,” she said thoughtfully.
“Of course.”
“Are you sure you would rather I told you?” she said earnestly. Then as he frowned and gripped his hands nervously, “It has nothing—it can have nothing to do with us now,” she said desperately, and, as he still hesitated, she added: “It will only hurt you. That is why I did what I did—not to hurt you.”
“I know that, too,” he said. “You were right. Don’t tell me.”