n?"

In answering her, Denham turned and looked at her. As their eyes met,
she realized for the first time that she was talking to Ralph Denham,
and she remembered, without recalling any details, that she had been
speaking of him quite lately, and that she had reason to think ill of
him. What Mary had said she could not remember, but she felt that
there was a mass of knowledge in her mind which she had not had time
to examine--knowledge now lying on the far side of a gulf. But her
agitation flashed the queerest lights upon her past. She must get
through the matter in hand, and then think it out in quiet. She bent
her mind to follow what Ralph was saying. He was telling her that he had
taken a cottage in Norfolk, and she was saying that she knew, or did not
know, that particular neighborhood. But after a moment's attention her
mind flew to Rodney, and she had an unusual, indeed unprecedented, sense
that they were in touch and shared each other's thoughts. If only
Ralph were not there, she would at once give way to her desire to take
William's hand, then to bend his head upon her shoulder, for this was
what she wanted to do more than anything at the moment, unless, indeed,
she wished more than anything to be alone--yes, that was what she
wanted. She was sick to death of these discussions; she shivered at the
effort to reveal her feelings. She had forgotten to answer. William was
speaking now.

"But what will you find to do in the country?" she asked at random,
striking into a conversation which she had only half heard, in such
a way as to make both Rodney and Denham look at her with a little
surprise. But directly she took up the conversation, it was William's
turn to fall silent. He at once forgot to listen to what they were
saying, although he interposed nervously at intervals, "Yes, yes, yes."
As the minutes passed, Ralph's presence became more and more intolerable
to him, since there was so much that he must say to Katharine; the
moment he could not talk to her, terrible doubts, unanswerable questions
accumulated, which he must lay before Katharine, for she alone could
help him now. Unless he could see her alone, it would be impossible for
him ever to sleep, or to know what he had said in a moment of madness,
which was not altogether mad, or was it mad? He nodded his head, and
said, nervously, "Yes, yes," and looked at Katharine, and thought how
beautiful she looked; there was no one in the world that he admired
mor