e penalty; she had been allowed, oh, divinely
allowed, to prove her love for him. He could not doubt it now; it
possessed her, body and soul; it was manifest to him in her eyes, and
in her voice, and in the service of her hands.

And if he said nothing, surely it would mean that he, too, trusted her to
understand.

CHAPTER XL

They had come back. They had spent their first evening together in the
house in Prior Street. Anne had dreaded the return; for the house
remembered its sad secrets. She had dreaded it more on her husband's
account than on her own.

She had passed before him through the doorway of the study; and her heart
had ached as she thought that it was in that room that she had struck at
him and put him from her. As he entered, she had turned, and closed the
door behind them, and lifted her face to his and kissed him. He had
looked at her with his kind, sad smile, but he had said nothing. All that
evening they had sat by their hearth, silent as watchers by the dead.

From time to time she had been aware of his eyes resting on her in their
profound and tragic scrutiny. She had been reminded then of the things
that yet remained unsaid.

At night he had risen at her signal; and she had waited while he put the
light out; and he had followed her upstairs. At her door she had stopped,
and kissed him, and said good-night, and she had turned her head to look
after him as he went. Surely, she had thought, he will come back and
speak to me.

And now she was still waiting after her undressing. She said to herself,
"We have come home. But he will not come to me. He has nothing to say to
me. There is nothing that can be said. If I could only speak to him."

She longed to go to him, to kneel at his feet and beg him to forgive her
and take her back again, as if it had been she who had sinned. But she
could not.

She stood for a moment before the couch at the foot of the bed, ready to
slip off her long white dressing-gown. She paused. Her eyes rested on the
silver crucifix, the beloved symbol of redemption. She remembered how he
had given it to her. She had not understood him even then; but she
understood him now. She longed to tell him that she understood. But she
could not.

She turned suddenly as she heard his low knock at her door. She had been
afraid to hear it once; now it made her heart beat hard with longing and
another fear. He came in. He stood by the closed door, gazing at her with
the dumb look