‘I always thought that I should never listen to anything which I might not repeat to you, Philip,’ she said hesitatingly.
‘Well?’
‘This afternoon, I have listened to something which I have ... I have promised not to tell you—yet.’
That little word ‘yet’ seemed to come in as a peacemaker; and Philip felt that it was so. But he looked gravely at the merry fire for a few minutes before he answered, and she now gazed anxiously into his face.
Then, he:
‘I don’t like the idea, Madge, and it would be nonsense to pretend that I did. I should feel myself—well, we won’t say what; but my notion is that our lives should be so much one that our acts should be clear to each other, and our thoughts should be the same, as far as possible. I am not so stupid as to imagine that we can always control our thoughts, and think only what we ought to think (what a weary world it would be if we could!); but I believe that a man and woman who love each other can, and ought to be honest in their thoughts, and should not keep one which cannot be confided to the twin—twin—what shall I call it?—twin spirit. There; that will do. Funny that I should be talking this way to you, Madge—you have taught it to me.’
His upturned face still wore the frank, boyish expression which it always assumed when he was with her.
Madge took her hand from his head and clasped it with the other round her knees, whilst she stared into the fire.
‘It is Aunt Hessy who has taught us both that rule. I, too, believe in it, and mean to follow it. But’——
She stopped, and the fright showed itself in her eyes again by the clear light of the cheerful fire.