year. I don't know just how or when. It may
have been suggested to him by some woman--for _they_ all understood, of
course. He said nothing to me, and I think he tried not to change in his
manner to me at first; but such things hurt--and it was working in both
of us. I knew that he knew. After a time we were just being polite and
considerate to each other. Before he found me out we had been on a
footing of--how can I express it to you?--of intelligent companionship,
I might say. We talked without restraint of many things of the kind we
could agree or disagree about without its going very deep ... if you
understand. And then that came to an end. I felt that the only possible
basis of our living in each other's company was going under my feet. And
at last it was gone.

"It had been like that," she ended simply, "for months before he died."
She sank into the corner of a sofa by the window, as though relaxing her
body after an effort. For a few moments both were silent. Trent was
hastily sorting out a tangle of impressions. He was amazed at the
frankness of Mrs. Manderson's story. He was amazed at the vigorous
expressiveness in her telling of it. In this vivid being, carried away
by an impulse to speak, talking with her whole personality, he had seen
the real woman in a temper of activity, as he had already seen the real
woman by chance in a temper of reverie and unguarded emotion. In both
she was very unlike the pale, self-disciplined creature of majesty that
she had been to the world. With that amazement of his went something
like terror of her dark beauty, which excitement kindled into an
appearance scarcely mortal in his eyes. Incongruously there rushed into
his mind, occupied as it was with the affair of the moment, a little
knot of ideas ... she was unique not because of her beauty but because
of its being united with intensity of nature; in England all the very
beautiful women were placid, all the fiery women seemed to have burnt up
the best of their beauty; that was why no beautiful woman had ever cast
this sort of spell on him before; when it was a question of wit in women
he had preferred the brighter flame to the duller, without much
regarding the lamp. "All this is very disputable," said his reason; and
instinct answered, "Yes--except that I am under a spell"; and a deeper
instinct cried out, "Away with it!" He forced his mind back to her
story, and found growing swiftly in him an irrepressible conviction. It
w