That night she wrote to John Storm, and next morning before Rosa had risen—her duties kept her up late—she heard a voice downstairs. Her dog also heard it and began to bark. At the next moment John was in the room and she was laughing up into his splendid black eyes, for he had caught her down at the sofa holding the pug's nose and trying to listen.
“Is it you? It's so good of you to come early! But this, dog”—breaking into the Manx dialect—“she's ter'ble, just ter'ble!” Then rising and looking serious: “I wished to tell you that I knew nothing about the church, nothing whatever. If I'd had the least idea... but they told me nothing—it was very wrong—nothing. And the first thing I knew was when I saw it in all the newspapers.”
He was leaning on the end of the mantelpiece. “If they deceived you like that, how can you go on with them?”
“You mean” (she was leaning on the other end, and speaking falteringly), “you mean that I ought to give it all up. But it's too late for that now. It was too late when I came to know. Besides, it would do no good; you would be in the same position still, and as for me—well, somebody else would have the theatre, so where's the use?”
“I was thinking of the future, Glory, not the past. People who deceive us once are capable of doing so again.”
“True—that's true—only—only——”
She was breaking down, and he turned his eyes away from her, saying, “Well, it's all over now, and there's no help for it.”
“No, there's no help for it.”
He tried to think what he had come to say, but do what he would he could not remember. The moment he looked at her the thread of his thoughts was lost, and the fragrance of her presence, so sweet, so close, made him feel as if he wanted to touch her. There was an awkward silence, and then he fidgeted with his hat and moved.
“Are you going so soon?”