‘You see,’ I said, ’your wife is so sentimental.  She would be incapable of looking at the affair as—­as we do; as I should in her place.’

I knew that my protests were insincere, and that all my heart and brain were with him, but I could not admit this frankly.  Ah!  And I knew also that the sole avenue to peace and serenity, not to happiness, was the path of renunciation and of obedience to the conventions of society, and that this was precisely the path which we should never take.  And on the horizon of our joy I saw a dark cloud.  It had always been there, but I had refused to see it.  I looked at it now steadily.

‘Of course,’ he groaned, ’if we are to be governed by Mary’s sentimentality—­’

‘Dear love,’ I whispered, ‘what do you want me to do?’

’The only possible, honest, just thing.  I want you to go away with me, so that Mary can get a divorce.’

He spoke sternly, as it were relentlessly.

‘Does she guess—­about me?’ I asked, biting my lip, and looking away from him.

’Not yet.  Hasn’t the slightest notion, I’m sure.  But I’ll tell her, straight and fair.’

‘Dearest friend,’ I said, after a silence.  ’Perhaps I know more of the world than you think.  Perhaps I’m a girl only in years and situation.  Forgive me if I speak plainly.  Mary may prove unfaithfulness, but she cannot get a decree unless she can prove other things as well.’

He stroked his forehead.  As for me, I shuddered with agitation.  He walked across the room and back.

‘Angel!’ he said, putting his white face close to mine like an actor.  ’I will prove whether your love for me is great enough.  I have struck her.  I struck her to-night in the presence of a servant.  And I did it purposely, in cold blood, so that she might be able to prove cruelty.  Ah!  Have I not thought it all out?  Have I not?’

A sob, painfully escaping, shook my whole frame.

‘And this was before you had—­had spoken to me!’ I said bitterly.

Not myself, but some strange and frigid force within me uttered those words.

’That is what love will do.  That is the sort of thing love drives one to,’ he cried despairingly.  ’Oh!  I was not sure of you—­I was not sure of you.  I struck her, on the off chance.’

And he sank on the sofa and wept passionately, unashamed, like a child.

I could not bear it.  My heart would have broken if I had watched, without assuaging, my boy’s grief an instant longer than I did.  I sprang to him.  I took him to my breast.  I kissed his eyes until the tears ceased to flow.  Whatever it was or might be, I must share his dishonour.

‘My poor girl!’ he said at length.  ’If you had refused me, if you had even judged me, I intended to warn you plainly that it meant my death; and if that failed, I should have gone to the office and shot myself.’

‘Do not say such things,’ I entreated him.