Why, we get over that when we are under twenty--except in an emergency."

"Ah, but this is an emergency," said Osmond, coming out of his washing
with clean hands and a dripping face. "It was an emergency for me, if it
wasn't for him."

XXII

MacLeod kept his thoughtful way on to Electra's gate. There he turned in
with no lack of decision, and walked up to her door. She had seen him,
and came forward from the shaded sitting-room. It was as if she had been
expecting him. Whether she had acknowledged it to herself or not, it was
true that Electra had never felt so strong a desire for the right
companionship as at that moment. As soon as she saw him and he had put
out his hand to her, she felt quieted and blessed. He was, as he had
been from the first, the completion of her mood. As he looked at her,
MacLeod, little as he knew her face, noted the change in it. She seemed
greatly excited and yet haggard, as if this disturbance were nothing to
what had preceded it. And her bright eyes fed upon him with a personal
appeal to which he was well used: that of the lower vitality
involuntarily demanding the support of his own magnetic treasury.

"You are tired," he said, as she drew her hand away and they sat down.

"No," returned Electra. "I am not tired."

"Tell me what has done it!"

The tender disregard of her denial broke down reserve. She looked at him
eloquently. It seemed to her that he had a right to know. She answered
faintly,--

"I have been through such scenes."

"Scenes? With whom?"

"Your daughter has told me"--She hesitated for a moment, and then, still
confident that his worship of the truth must be as exalted as her own,
ended with unstinted candor, "She says she was not my brother's wife."

Electra was looking at him, and it appeared to her now as if, in a
bewildering way, his gaze absorbed hers. It was very strange, how he
seemed to draw the intelligence of the eye into his and hold it
unresisting. She hardly knew how he looked, whether surprised or
sympathetic, or whether he was moved at all. But she was conscious of
being gripped by some communion in which she acquiesced. After a moment
he leaned forward and took her hand.

"Will you promise me something?" he asked.

"Anything!" The quickness of the answer was as eloquent as its force.

"Promise me that this thing--this subject--shall never come between you
and me."

"Gladly."

"We won't talk of it."

"No."

"We won't ask each o