He was changed for ever to her eyes; she knew his secret.

There was the cloud no bigger than a man's hand.

For she must needs think over all that he had said and done by the new light the secret shed.

When did he first begin to care?
Why?
She recalled his first visit long ago to Ohlau, when he rode across the park on his black horse charged with his momentous errand.

She had been standing, she remembered, before the blazing log-fire in the great stone hall, much as she was standing now.
Great changes had come since then.