I have acted as though I were free.' She shook, as if a blow had fallen upon her.

Then a smile came to her lips.
'You have asked her again to be your wife ?' 'I have.' 'And she has consented ?' 'Because I deceived her at the same time that I behaved dishonourably to you.' She fixed upon him eyes which had a strange inward look, eyes veiled with reverie, vaguely troubled, unimpassioned.

It was as though she calmly readjusted in her own mind the relations between him and herself.
The misery of Wilfrid's situation was mitigated in a degree by mere wonder at her mode of receiving his admissions.

This interview was no logical sequence upon the scene of a week ago; and the issue then had been, one would have thought, less provocative of demonstration than to-day's.
Directness once more armed her gaze, and again he was powerless to meet it.

Still no resentment, no condemnation.