But on the whole a calm prevailed; a stranger entering at noon or during the evening meal might have deemed the party ill-assorted and silent, but lacking neither in amity nor ease.
Meantime, under cover of this calm, destined to be short-lived and holding in suspense the makings of a storm of no mean violence, two persons were drawing nearer to one another.

A confidence, even a confidence not perfect, is a tie above most.

Nor does love play at any time a higher part than when it repeats "I do not understand--I trust".
By the common light of day, which showed Anne moving to and fro about her household tasks, at once the minister and the providence of the home, the dark suspicion that had for a moment--a moment only!--mastered Claude's judgment, lost shape and reality.

It was impossible to see her bending over the hearth, or arranging her mother's simple meal, it was impossible to witness her patience, her industry, her deftness, to behold her, ever gentle yet supporting with a man's fortitude the trials of her position, trials of the bitterness of which she had given him proof--it was impossible, in a word, to watch her in her daily life, without perceiving the wickedness as well as the folly of the thought which had possessed him.
True, the more he saw of her the graver seemed the mystery; and the more deeply he wondered.

But he no longer dreaded the answer to the riddle; nor did he fear to meet at some turn or corner a Megaera head that should freeze his soul.