And yet—­what of it?  Of course there was some simple and natural explanation, which she would give when she felt better able.  Doubtless she had been threatened; blackmailed perhaps.  And meantime the light thrown directly and indirectly on Carlisle’s distraught mood touched the lover deeply.  He hardly needed Mrs. Heth’s frightened hints about the necessity of gentleness with firmness in dealing with a flare-up.  Had he himself not known the wilful nature of her spirit in excitement, that never-forgotten evening in the library?

And when the striker of the right note withdrew at last, and Carlisle herself appeared in the drawing-room, very white and subdued, the last remnant of a personal grievance vanished from Canning’s manner.  Nothing could have exceeded the tenderness of his greeting....

“Did my telegram surprise you?” he said presently.  “I got so troubled about you after you were gone....  I couldn’t bear to leave you alone with this....”

And Cally said, with a quiver in her voice:  “Oh, Hugo!...  If you only knew how I’ve wanted you to-day!...”

She meant it with every fibre of her being.  Doubly he had convinced her now that he could never be shocked or disgusted with her, that in him a perfect sympathy enfolded her, covering all mistakes.  That he might not understand quite yet how she felt about everything was possible, but that was nothing now, by the fact that he understood her, at any rate, as mamma never could.

Some discussion of the matter was of course necessary.  And presently, after they had talked a little, quite naturally, of his journey and how she had slept last night, the lovers drifted on into Mr. Heth’s little study, reopened against this need.

Here they sat down and began to talk.  And here, in five minutes, Carlisle’s heart began mysteriously to sink within her....

She had been going through a series of violent emotional experiences in which he had had not the slightest share, and now required of him that he should catch up with the results of these experiences, upon a moment’s notice and at a single bound.  She could not realize the extreme difficulty of this feat.  Nor, indeed, could Canning himself, confident by the ease with which his love had appeared to put down all personal irritations.  To his seeming, as to hers, they had met in perfect spiritual reunion.

Accordingly, when he proposed that the matter be allowed to rest quiet for a day or two, till they were all in a little better frame of mind to view it calmly, he offered a temporary solution which he felt certain would seem to her as reasonable and as tactfully considerate as it did to him.

“In this moment of shock and distress,” he said, with admirable restraint, “you are not quite in the best frame of mind, you see, to decide such a serious matter.  Fortunately, to wait a little while and think it over quietly can do no harm to anybody now.  And then, if you still feel the same way about it, of course I shall want to do what you wish.”