n agree with all that. But it applies to people married in the
ordinary way. I was speaking of ourselves, placed as we are.'

'I don't pretend to like the concealment,' said Tarrant. 'For one thing,
there's a suggestion of dishonour about it. We've gone over all that--'

'Oh, I don't mean that for a moment. It isn't really dishonourable. My
father could never have objected to _you_ for my husband. He only wanted
to guard me--Mary says so, and he told her everything. He thought me a
silly, flighty girl, and was afraid I should be trapped for the sake of
my money. I wish--oh how I wish I had had the courage to tell him! He
would have seen you, and liked and trusted you--how could he help?'

'It might have been better--but who knows whether he would have seen me
with your eyes, Nancy?'

'Yes, yes. But I was going to say----'

She hesitated.

'Say on.'

'There are so many difficulties before us, dear.'

'Not if we continue to think of each other as we do now. Do you mean it
might be discovered?'

'Yes, through no fault of ours.'

She hesitated again.

'Quite sure you haven't told anybody?'

'No one.'

Tarrant had a doubt on this point. He strongly suspected that Jessica
Morgan knew the truth, but he shrank from pressing Nancy to an avowal of
repeated falsehood.

'Then it's very unlikely we should be found out. Who would dream of
tracking you here, for instance? And suppose we were seen together
in the street or in the country, who would suspect anything more than
love-making? and that is not forbidden you.'

'No. But--'

'But?'

'But suppose I--'

She rose, crossed to him, seated herself on his knee and put an arm
about his neck. Before she had spoken another word, Tarrant understood;
the smile on his face lost its spontaneity; a bitter taste seemed to
distort his lips.

'You think--you are afraid--'

He heard a monosyllable, and sat silent. This indeed had not entered
into his calculations; but why not? He could hardly say; he had ignored
the not unimportant detail, as it lurked among possibilities. Perhaps
had willingly ignored it, as introducing a complication oppressive
to his indolence, to his hodiernal philosophy. And now he arraigned
mother-nature, the very divinity whom hitherto he had called upon to
justify him. All at once he grew cold to Nancy. The lulled objections to
matrimony awoke in him again; again he felt that he had made a fool of
himself. Nancy was better than he had thought;