“ No,” he said slowly. “What other woman should I want?”
“ Like your brother,” she said.
He was silent for some time, ashamed also.
“ What of her?” he said. “I didn’t like the woman.”
“ Yes, you liked her,” she answered persistently.
He stared in wonder at his own wife as she told him his own heart so callously. And he was indignant. What right had she to sit there telling him these things? She was his wife, what right had she to speak to him like this, as if she were a stranger.
“ I didn’t,” he said. “I want no woman.”
“ Yes, you would like to be like Alfred.”
His silence was one of angry frustration. He was astonished. He had told her of his visit to Wirksworth, but briefly, without interest, he thought.
As she sat with her strange dark face turned towards him, her e
