It was the slow turning of the doorhandle that woke her.  Instantly she remembered the huge extent to which life had gone wrong during the past few hours, and rolled back to face the window, which was now admitting a light grown grave with the lateness of the afternoon.  It might be that it was Richard who was coming into her room to say that he did not want to marry her either; or Marion, who would be quiet and kind, and yet terrifying as if she carried a naked sword; or one of those superior-looking maids to tell her that tea was ready.  She lay and waited.  Her heart opened and closed because these were Richard’s steps that were crossing the room, and they were slow.  They were more—­they were shy.  And when they paused at the foot of the bed his deep sigh was the very voice of penitence.  She shot up out of her pretence of sleep and sat staring at him.  Tears gushed out of her eyes, yet her singing heart knew there was nothing more irrelevant to life than tears.  For he was pale again and fine-grained, and though he stood vast above her he was pitiful as a child.  She stretched out her arms and cried:  “Oh, you poor thing!  Come away!  Come close to me!”

But he did not.  He came slowly round to the side of the bed and knelt down, and began to pick at the hem of the counterpane, turning his face from her.  She was aware that she was witnessing the masculine equivalent of weeping, and let him be, keeping up a little stream of tender words and sometimes brushing his tense, unhappy hands with faint kisses.

“Forgive me,” he muttered painfully at last.  “I was a brute—­oh, such a brute.  Do, do forgive me.”

“Yes, yes,” she soothed.  “Never heed.  I knew you didn’t mean it.”

“Oh, I was foul,” he groaned, and turned his head away again.

“But don’t grieve so over it, darling; it’s over now,” she said softly, and took his face between her hands and kissed it.  Its bronze beauty and the memory that she had struck it pierced her, and she cried, “Oh, my love, say I didn’t hurt you when I hit you!”

He broke into anguished laughter.  “No, you wee little thing!” He strained her to him and faltered vehemently:  “You generous dear!  When I’ve insulted and bullied you and shouted at you, you ask me if you’ve hurt me!  I wish you had.  It would have given me some of the punishment I deserve.  Oh, keep me, you wonderful, strong, forgiving dear!  Keep me from being a hound, keep me from forgetting—­whatever it is we’ve found out.  You’ve seen what I’m like when I’ve forgotten it.  Oh, love me!  Love me!”

“I will, I will!”

They clung together and spent themselves in reconciling kisses.

“It was my fault, too,” she whispered.  “I was awful hard on you.  And maybe I took you up too quick.”

“No, it was all my fault,” he answered softly.  “I was worried and I lost my head.”

“Worried?  What are you worried about, my darling?  You never told me that.”