Once she turned as if to go, but caught herself and turned again to look at the bent head of Allan.
At last it seemed to her that she could trust herself to speak.

Closing the door softly, she went to the big chair at the end of the desk.

As she let herself go into this with a sudden joy in the strength of its supporting arms, her husband looked up at her inquiringly.
She did not speak, but returned his gaze; returned it, with such steadiness that presently he let his own eyes go down before hers with palpable confusion, as if fearing some secret might lie there plain to her view.

His manner stimulated the suspicion under which she now seemed to labour.
"Allan, I must know something at once very clearly.

It will make a mighty difference in your life and in mine." "What is it you wish to know ?" His glance was oblique and his manner one of discomfort, the embarrassed discomfort of a man who fears that the real truth--the truth he has generously striven to withhold--is at last to come out.
"That letter which Bernal was so troubled about came from--from that woman--how could I avoid seeing that when it was handed to me?
Did you know it, too ?" "Why, Nancy--I knew--of course--I knew he expected--I mean the poor boy told me--" Here he broke off in the same pitiful confusion that had marked Bernal's manner at the door--the confusion of apprehended deceit.
Then he began again, as if with gathered wits--"What was I saying?
I know nothing whatever of Bernal's affairs or his letters.