He did not answer at once, and she repeated her question: "When shall I see you again? I don't want you to stay away so long again."
He tried to speak, but somehow could find no words. She looked up at him in surprise. It was too dark to see his face, but something in the tenseness of his tall figure seemed to tell her a great deal, She spoke his name in a whisper.
"Mr. Kettering!"
He laid his hand on her shoulder. He spoke slowly, with averted face.
"Mrs. Challoner, if I were a strong man I should say that you and I must never meet again. You are married—unhappily, you think now; but, somehow—somehow I don't want to believe that. Give him another chance, will you? We all make mistakes, you know. Give him another chance, and then, if that fails——" He did not finish. He waited a moment, standing silently beside her; then he went away out into the darkness and left her there alone.
Christine stood listening to the sound of his footsteps on the gravel drive. He seemed to take a long while to reach the gate, she thought mechanically; it seemed an endless time till she heard it slam behind him.
But even then she did not move; she just stood staring into the darkness, her heart fluttering in her throat.
She would have said that she had only loved one man—the man whom she had married; but now. . . . Suddenly she covered her face with her hands, and, turning, ran into the house and upstairs to her room, shutting and locking the door behind her.