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No sooner, however, had she placed it in Delafield's hands than she was conscious of new forces of feeling in herself which robbed the act of its simplicity. She had meant to plead her lover's cause and her own with the friend who was nominally her husband. Her action had been a cry for sympathy, as from one soul to another.
So Marcia came back promptly: "I know you think it unreasonable," she said, "but there's a condition you overlook. We became Christians long before any of us thought about studying Delafield's needs. And if we and all the rest of the Christians of the town had accepted our financial relation to the Kingdom and had acted on it from the start, there would always be money enough and to spare."
Presently, at a word or look of Delafield's she would let herself be recaptured, as though with a proud reluctance; they wandered away together; and once more Meredith and the Duchess became the merest by-standers. The Duchess shrugged her shoulders over it, and, though she laughed, sometimes the tears were in her eyes.
"That I am not fit company, just now, for hearts as gay as yours and Mr. Delafield's," he returned, and rising, he made a hasty bow and withdrew. "What can he mean!" said Charlotte, in amazement, "George does not appear well, and latterly his manner is much altered what can he mean, Mr. Delafield?"
I had forgotten a letter I must write." And she pretended to write it, while Delafield buried himself in the newspapers. Julie's curiosity passing and perfunctory as it was concerning the persons and influences that had worked upon Jacob Delafield since his college days, was felt in good earnest by not a few of Delafield's friends.
The notion had crossed his mind once or twice during the winter, only to be dismissed as ridiculous. Then, on the occasion of their first quarrel, when Julie had snubbed him in Delafield's presence and to Delafield's advantage, he had been conscious of a momentary alarm.
If she would but put her hand in mine I would so serve and worship her, she would have no need for these strange things she does the doublings and ruses of the persecuted." Thus the touches of falsity that repelled Wilfrid Bury were to Delafield's passion merely the stains of rough travel on a fair garment. But she refused him, and for another year he said no more.
And while he lay there dead, under the tropical sand, she was still living and breathing here, in this old Swiss inn Jacob Delafield's wife, at least in name. There was a knock at her door. At first she did not answer it. It seemed to be only one of the many dream sounds which tormented her nerves. Then it was repeated. Mechanically she said "Come in."
But her voice died in the rattle and bustle of the diligence outside, and she was left trembling from head to foot, under a conflict of emotions that seemed now to exalt, now to degrade her. Half an hour after Delafield's departure there appeared on the terrace of the hotel a tottering, emaciated form Aileen Moffatt, in a black dress and hat, clinging to her mother's arm.
And you were dining out. I I can't understand!" She spoke with a frowning intensity, a strange queenliness, in which was neither guilt nor confusion. A voice spoke in Delafield's heart. "Tell her!" it said. He bent nearer to her. "Miss Le Breton, with what friends were you going to stay in Paris?" She breathed quick.
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