"Yes," she said; "I understand."
Of course she understood. Poor Peter! so it had come to that?
"Can't you stay for tea?" she said.
"No; I must be going back to her."
He rose. His hand found hers. Its slight pressure told her that he
gave and took the sadness of renunciation.
That winter Mrs. Wilkinson fell ill in good earnest, and Wilkinson
became the prey of a pitiful remorse that kept him a prisoner by his
wife's bedside.
He had always been a good man; it was now understood that he avoided
Mrs. Norman because he desired to remain what he had always been.