had scorched and seared her for days afterward. He saw her, therefore, only at the apartment, going more and more frequently in the early afternoon before the children had come home from school.
At first he tried to resist caresses altogether, for he knew how high a price a woman like Sheilah must pay for them if stolen. But not succeeding completely he made her feel how precious they were to him, and how much more precious than as if she were free to respond openly, at no sacrifice of her code of honor. He never partook of a caress, even a light caress, lightly, and was never gay nor flippant afterward, but quiet and awed, as if he had just received a sacrament of some sort, and his soul, not his body alone, was stirred. So because her love was so reverenced, and every little sign and symbol of it so highly valued, gradually Sheilah's early sense of shame that had dulled her elation like tarnish, disappeared under Roger's constant tending and care, and was slowly persuaded into a glowing sense of pride.
With the same insight Roger also foresaw another fear that might arise due to the galling fact that she was a woman in hiding, unacknowledged, unrecognized, whom he could not marry. It would not be strange if she wondered sometimes what more she was to him than merely a woman he wished to kiss. He proved to her what more she was to him. He proved
