u have said that it is well to have reason on one's side.'

Perhaps a softer note allowed itself to be detected in these words. In
any case, they were not plainly ironical.

'Admit, then, that an approach was due from me. I have made it. I am
here.'

Rhoda said nothing. Yet she had not an air of expectancy. Her eye was
grave, rather sad, as though for the moment she had forgotten what was
at issue, and had lost herself in remoter thought. Regarding her,
Everard felt a nobility in her countenance which amply justified all he
had ever felt and said. But was there anything more--any new power?

'So we go back,' he pursued, 'to our day at Wastwater. The perfect
day--wasn't it?'

'I shall never wish to forget it,' said Rhoda reflectively.

'And we stand as when we quitted each other that night--do we?'

She glanced at him.

'I think not.'

'Then what is the difference?'

He waited some seconds, and repeated the question before Rhoda answered.

'You are conscious of no difference?' she said.

'Months have lapsed. We are different because we are older. But you
speak as if you were conscious of some greater change.'

'Yes, you are changed noticeably. I thought I knew you; perhaps I did.
Now I should have to learn you all over again. It is difficult, you
see, for me to keep pace with you. Your opportunities are so much
wider.'

This was puzzling. Did it signify mere jealousy, or a profounder view
of things? Her voice had something even of pathos, as though she
uttered a simple thought, without caustic intention.

'I try not to waste my life,' he answered seriously. 'I have made new
acquaintances.'

'Will you tell me about them?'

'Tell me first about yourself. You say you would never have written to
me. That means, I think, that you never loved me. When you found that I
had been wrongly suspected--and you suspected me yourself, say what you
will--if you had loved me, you would have asked forgiveness.'

'I have a like reason for doubting _your_ love. If you had loved me you
could never have waited so long without trying to remove the obstacle
that was between us.'

'It was you who put the obstacle there,' said Everard, smiling.

'No. An unlucky chance did that. Or a lucky one. Who knows?'

He began to think: If this woman had enjoyed the social advantages to
which Agnes Brissenden and those others were doubtless indebted for so
much of their charm, would she not have been their equal, or more? For
the f