“Yes?” said Burke.

“Yes.”  She repeated the word uncompromisingly, and closed her lips.

“You’re not going to tell me why?” he suggested.

Her pale eyes grew suddenly hard and intensely bright.  “Yes.  I should like to tell you,” she said.

He got up with a quiet movement.  “Well, why?” he said.

Her eyes flashed fire.  “Because,” she spoke very quickly, scarcely pausing for breath, “you have turned her from a happy girl into a miserable woman.  I knew it would come.  I saw it coming, I knew—­long before she did—­that she had married the wrong man.  And I knew what she would suffer when she found out.  She tried hard not to find out; she did her best to blind herself.  But she had to face it at last.  You forced her to open her eyes.  And now—­she knows the truth.  She will do her duty, because you are her husband and there is no escape.  But it will be bondage to her as long as she lives.  You have taken all the youth and the joy out of her life.”

There was a fierce ring of passion in the words.  For once Matilda Merston glowed with life.  There was even something superb in her reckless denunciation of the man before her.

He heard it without stirring a muscle, his eyes fixed unwaveringly upon her, grim and cold as steel.  When she ceased to speak, he still stood motionless, almost as if he were waiting for something.

She also waited, girt for battle, eager for the fray.  But he showed no sign of anger, and gradually her enthusiasm began to wane.  She bent, panting a little and began to smooth out a piece of the grey flannel with nervous exactitude.

Then Burke spoke.  “So you think I am not the right man for her.”

“I am quite sure of that,” said Matilda without looking up.

“That means,” Burke spoke slowly, with deliberate insistence, “that you know she loves another man better.”

Matilda was silent.

He bent forward a little, looking straight into her downcast face.  “Mrs. Merston,” he said, “you are a woman; you ought to know.  Do you believe—­honestly—­that she would have been any happier married to that other man?”

She looked at him then in answer to his unspoken desire.  He had refused to do battle with her.  That was her first thought, and she was conscious of a momentary sense of triumph.  Then—­for she was a woman—­her heart stirred oddly within her, and her triumph was gone.  She met his quiet eyes with a sudden sharp misgiving.  What had she done?

“Please answer me!” Burke said.

And, in a low voice, reluctantly, she made answer.  “I am afraid I do.”

“You know the man?” he said.

She nodded.  “I believe—­in time—­she might have been his salvation.  Everybody thought he was beyond redemption.  I know that.  But she—­had faith.  And they loved each other.  That makes all the difference.”

“Ah!” he said.