“Not? But suppose we had gone through the ceremony? Would you feel that you were then?”
“No. I should not feel even then that I was. I should feel worse than I do now.”
“Why so—in the name of all that’s perverse, my dear?”
“Because I am Richard’s.”
“Ah—you hinted that absurd fancy to me before!”
“It was only an impression with me then; I feel more and more convinced as time goes on that—I belong to him, or to nobody.”
“My good heavens—how we are changing places!”
“Yes. Perhaps so.”
Some few days later, in the dusk of the summer evening, they were sitting in the same small room downstairs, when a knock came to the front door of the carpenter’s house where they were lodging, and in a few moments there was a tap at the door of their room. Before they could open it the comer did so, and a woman’s form appeared.
“Is Mr. Fawley here?”