"Can I believe it? Oh no!--I cannot--I will not!" she murmured. "There must be some mistake--Clara has heard wrongly." She sighed again. "Yet--if it is so,--he is not to blame--it is I--I who have failed to please him. Where--how have I failed?"
A pained, puzzled look filled her grave blue eyes, and she stopped in her walk to and fro.
"It cannot be true!" she said half aloud,--"it is altogether unlike him. Though Clara says--and she has known him so long!--Clara says he loved her once--long before he saw me--my poor Philip!--he must have suffered by that love!--perhaps that is why he thought life so wearisome when he first came to the Altenfjord--ah! the Altenfjord!"
A choking sob rose in her throat--but she repressed it. "I must try not to weary him," she continued softly--"I must have done so in some way, or he would not be tired. But as for what I have heard,--it is not for me to ask him questions. I would not have him think that I mistrust him. No--there is some fault in me--something he does not like, or he would never go to--" She broke off and stretched out her hands with a sort of wild appeal. "Oh, Philip! my darling!" she exclaimed in a sobbing whisper. "I always knew I was not worthy of you--but I thought,--I hoped my love would make amends for all my shortcomings!"
Tears rushed into her eyes, and she turned to a little arched recess, shaded by velvet curtains--her oratory--where stood an exquisite white marble statuette of the Virgin and Child. There she knelt for some minutes, her face hidden in her hands, and when she rose she was quite calm, though very pale. She freshened her face with cold water, rearranged her disordered hair,--and then went downstairs, thereby running into the arms of her husband who was coming up again to look, as he said, at his "Sleeping Beauty."
"And here she is!" he exclaimed joyously. "Have you rested enough, my pet?"
"Indeed, yes!" she answered gently. "I am ashamed so be so lazy. Have you wanted me, Philip?"
"I always want you," he declared. "I am never happy without you."
She smiled and sighed. "You say that to please me," she said half wistfully.
"I say it because it is true!" he asserted proudly, putting his arm round her waist and escorting her in this manner down the great staircase. "And you know it, you sweet witch! You're just in time to see the lighting up of the grounds. There'll be a good view from the picture-gallery--lots of the people have gone in there--you'd better come too, for it's chilly outside."