At last Unorna was silent.  She had reached the period of her life which had begun a month before that time, and at that point her story ended.

“Then you are not married?” Beatrice’s tone expressed an interrogation and a certain surprise.

“No,” said Unorna, “I am not married.  And you, if I may ask?”

Beatrice started visibly.  It had not occurred to her that the question might seem a natural one for Unorna to ask, although she had said that she was alone in the world.  Unorna might have supposed her to have lost her husband.  But Unorna could see that it was not surprise alone that had startled her.  The question, as she knew it must, had roused a deep and painful train of thought.

“No,” said Beatrice, in an altered voice.  “I am not married.  I shall never marry.”

A short silence followed, during which she turned her face away.

“I have pained you,” said Unorna with profound sympathy and regret.  “Forgive me!  How could I be so tactless!”

“How could you know?” Beatrice asked simply, not attempting to deny the suggestion.

But Unorna was suffering too.  She had allowed herself to imagine that in the long years which had passed Beatrice might perhaps have forgotten.  It had even crossed her mind that she might indeed be married.  But in the few words, and in the tremor that accompanied them, as well as in the increased pallor of Beatrice’s face, she detected a love not less deep and constant and unforgotten than the Wanderer’s own.

“Forgive me,” Unorna repeated.  “I might have guessed.  I have loved too.”

She knew that here, at least, she could not feign and she could not control her voice, but with supreme judgment of the effect she allowed herself to be carried beyond all reserve.  In the one short sentence her whole passion expressed itself, genuine, deep, strong, ruthless.  She let the words come as they would, and Beatrice was startled by the passionate cry that burst from the heart, so wholly unrestrained.

For a long time neither spoke again, and neither looked at the other.  To all appearances Beatrice was the first to regain her self-possession.  And then, all at once the words came to her lips which could be restrained no longer.  For years she had kept silence, for there had been no one to whom she could speak.  For years she had sought him, as best she could, as he had sought her, fruitlessly and at last hopelessly.  And she had known that her father was seeking him also, everywhere, that he might drag her to the ends of the earth at the mere suspicion of the Wanderer’s presence in the same country.  It had amounted to a madness with him of the kind not seldom seen.  Beatrice might marry whom she pleased, but not the one man she loved.  Day by day and year by year their two strong wills had been silently opposed, and neither the one nor the other had ever been unconscious of the struggle, nor had either yielded a hair’s-breadth.