have flirted very badly, and I have had many
of those little love-affairs which every woman I know indulges
in--silly little affairs just to pass away the time, and to make one
believe that one is living. But I have never really cared for anybody,
and these little follies, although I suppose they are such a waste of
emotion and truthfulness and real feeling, haven't amounted to very
much, Henry. You know what I mean. It is so difficult to say. But you
believe that?"

"I believe it from my soul," he answered.

"You see," she went on, "it seemed to me all right, because there was
no one to point out how foolish and silly it was to play one's way
through life as though it were a nursery, and we children, and to
forget that we were grown-up, and that we were getting older with the
years. You have been quite content without me, Henry?" she asked,
looking up at him wistfully.

"Yes, I have been content!" he admitted, looking away from her,
looking out of the room. "I have been content, after a fashion."

"Ours was such a marriage of convenience," she went on, "and you were
so very plain-spoken about it, Henry. I feel somehow as though I were
breaking a compact when I turn round and ask you whether it is not
possible that we might be, perhaps, some day, a little more to one
another. You know why I am almost afraid to say this. It has not been
with you as it has been with me. I have always felt that she has been
there--Pauline."

She was tearing little bits from the lace of her handkerchief. Her
eyes sought his fearfully.

"Don't think, when I say that," she continued, "that I say it with any
idea of blaming you. You told me that you loved Pauline when we were
engaged, and of course she was married then, and one did not
expect--it never seemed likely that she might be free. And now she is
free," Lady Mary went on, with a little break in her voice, "and I am
here, your wife, and I am afraid that you love her still so much that
what I am saying to you must sound very, very unwelcome. Tell me,
Henry. Is that so?"

Rochester was touched. It was impossible not to feel the sincerity of
her words. He sank on one knee, and took her hands in his.

"Mary," he said, "this is all so surprising. I did not expect it. We
have lived so long and gone our own ways, and you have seemed until
just lately so utterly content, that I quite forgot that anywhere in
this butterfly little body there might be such a thing as a soul. Will
you gi