Norman, with his books before him, was sitting back in his chair, his head leaning back and resting in his clasped hands, deep in thought upon the gloom of the present and the perplexities of the future, when there was a tap at the door.

With some impatience he called to the person to enter.

The door opened, and Norman could scarcely believe his senses.  For a second he did not even sit forward.  He did not stir; he simply remained sitting back in his chair, his face turned to the door, his eyes resting on the figure before him in vague amazement.  The next second, with a half-cry, his wife was on her knees beside him, her arms about him, her form shaken with sobs.  He sat forward slowly, and his arm rested on her shoulders.

“There! don’t cry,” he said slowly; “it might be worse.”

But all she said was: 

“Oh, Norman!  Norman!”

He tried to raise her, with grave words to calm her; but she resisted, and clung to him closer.

“It is not so bad; it might be worse,” he repeated.

She rose suddenly to her feet and flung back her veil.

“Can you forgive me?  I have come to beg your forgiveness on my knees.  I have been mad—­mad.  I was deceived.  No!  I will not say that—­I was crazy—­a fool!  But I loved you always, you only.  You will forgive me?  Say you will.”

“There, there!  Of course I will—­I do.  I have been to blame quite as much—­more than you.  I was a fool.”

“Oh, no, no!  You shall not say that; but you will believe that I loved you—­you only—­always!  You will believe this?  I was mad.”

He raised her up gently, and with earnest words reassured her, blaming himself for his harshness and folly.

She suddenly opened her bag and emptied the contents out on his desk.

“There!  I have brought you these.”

Her husband gazed in silent astonishment.

“I don’t understand.”

“They are for you,” she said—­“for us.  To pay our debts.  To help you.”  She pulled off her glove and began to take off her diamond rings.

“They will not go a great way,” said Norman, with a smile of indulgence.

“Well, as far as they will go they shall go.  Do you think I will keep anything I have when you are in trouble—­when your good name is at stake?  The house—­everything shall go.  It is all my fault.  I have been a wicked, silly fool; but I did not know—­I ought to have known; but I did not.  I do not see how I could have been so blind and selfish.”

“Oh, don’t blame yourself.  I have not blamed you,” said Norman, soothingly.  “Of course, you did not know.  How could you?  Women are not expected to know about those things.”

“Yes, they are,” insisted Mrs. Wentworth.  “If I had not been such a fool I might have seen.  It is all plain to me now.  Your harassment—­my folly—­it came to me like a stroke of lightning.”

Norman’s eyes were on her with a strange inquiring look in them.