It seemed unanswerable to her.  How could Grizel do anything that would give him the right to be angry with her?  Oh, men, men! will you never understand how absolutely all of her a woman’s love can be?  If she gives you everything, how can she give you more?  She is not another person; she is part of you.  Does one finger of your hand plot against another?

He told her sullenly of his scene with the doctor.

“I am very sorry,” she said; but her eyes were still searching for the reason why Tommy could be angry with her.

“You made me promise to tell no one,” he said, “and I have kept my promise:  but you——­”

The anguish that was Grizel’s then!  “You can’t think that I told him!” she cried, and she held out her arms as if to remind him of who she was.  “You can believe that of your Grizel?”

“I daresay you have not done it wittingly; but this man has guessed, and he could never have guessed it from look or word of mine.”

“It must have been I!” she said slowly.  “Tell me,” she cried like a suppliant, “how have I done it?”

“Your manner, your face,” he answered; “it must have been that.  I don’t blame you.  Grizel, but—­yes, it must have been that, and it is hard on me.”

He was in misery, and these words leaped out.  They meant only that it was hard on him if Elspeth had to be told of his engagement in the hour of her dejection.  He did not mean to hurt Grizel to the quick.  However terrible the loss of his freedom might be to the man who could not love, he always intended to be true to her.  But she gave the words a deeper meaning.

She stood so still she seemed to be pondering, and at last she said quietly, as if they had been discussing some problem outside themselves:  “Yes, I think it must have been that.”  She looked long at him.  “It is very hard on you,” she said.

“I feel sure it was that,” she went on; and now her figure was erect, and again it broke, and sometimes there was a noble scorn in her voice, but more often there was only pitiful humility.  “I feel sure it was that, for I have often wondered how everybody did not know.  I have broken my promise.  I used always to be able to keep a promise.  I had every other fault,—­I was hard and proud and intolerant,—­but I was true.  I think I was vain of that, though I see now it was only something I could not help; from the moment when I had a difficulty in keeping a promise, I ceased to keep it.  I love you so much that I carry my love in my face for all to read.  They cannot see me meet you without knowing the truth; they cannot hear me say your name but I betray myself; I show how I love you in every movement; I am full of you.  How can anyone look at me and not see you?  I should have been more careful—­oh, I could have been so much more careful had I loved you a little less!  It is very hard on you.”

The note of satire had died out of her voice; her every look and gesture carried in it nothing but love for him; but all the unhappy dog could say was something about self-respect.