re had been between them. "You have others----" What did Lucy mean?

He got up, moved by the uneasiness of this question, and began to pace
about the floor. He had no others; never had a man been more devoted to
his own house. She had not been exacting, nor he uxorious. He had lived
a man's life in the world, and had not neglected his duties for his
wife; but he reminded himself, with a sort of indignant satisfaction,
that he had found Lucy far more interesting than he expected, and that
her fresh curiosity, her interest in everything, and the just enough of
receptive intelligence, which is more agreeable than cleverness, had
made her the most pleasant companion he had ever known. It was not an
exercise of self-denial, of virtue on his part, as the Dowager and
indeed many other of his friends had attempted to make out, but a real
pleasure in her society. He had liked to talk to her, to tell her his
own past history (selections from it), to like, yet laugh at her simple
comments. He never despised anything she said, though he had laughed at
some of it with a genial and placid amusement. And that little beggar!
about whom Sir Tom could not even think to-day without a rush of water
to his eyes--could any man have considered the little fellow more, or
been more proud of him or fond? He could not live in the nursery, it was
true, like Lucy, but short of that--"Others." What could she mean? There
were no others. He was content to live and die, if but they might be
spared to him, with her and the boy. A sort of chill doubt that somebody
might have breathed into her ear that suggestion about Bice's parentage
did indeed cross his mind; but ever since he had ascertained that this
fear was a delusion, it had seemed to him the most ridiculous idea in
the world. It had not seemed so before; it had appeared probable enough,
nay, with many coincidences in its favour. And he had even been
conscious of something like disappointment to find that it was not true.
But now it seemed to him too absurd for credence; and what creature in
the world, except himself, could have known the circumstances that made
it possible? No one but Williams, and Williams was true.

It was not till next morning that the ordinary habits of the household
could be said to be in any measure resumed. On that day Bice came down
to breakfast with Sir Tom with a smiling brightness which cheered his
solitary heart. She had gone back out of all her finery to the simple
b