“What have you chosen?” he repeated relentlessly.

And reluctantly, more than half against her will, she told him.  “I am going to the man I love.”

She was prepared for some violent outburst upon her words, but none came.  Nick heard her in silence, standing straight before her, watching her, she felt, with an almost brutal intentness, though his eyes never for an instant met her own.

“Then,” he said suddenly at length, and quick though they were, it seemed to her that the words fell with something of the awful precision of a death-sentence, “God help you both; for you are going to destroy him and yourself too.”

Daisy made a sharp gesture; it was almost one of shrinking.  And at once he turned from her and fell to pacing the little room, up and down, up and down incessantly, like an animal in a cage.  It was useless to attempt to dismiss him, for she saw that he would not go.  She moved quietly to a chair and sat down to wait.

Abruptly at last he stopped, halting in front of her.  “Daisy,”—­he began, and broke off short, seeming to battle with himself.

She looked up in surprise.  It was so utterly unlike Nick to relinquish his self-command at a critical juncture.  The next moment he amazed her still further.  He dropped suddenly down on his knees and gripped her clasped hands fast.

“Daisy,” he said again, and this time words came, jerky and passionate, “this is my doing.  I’ve driven you to it.  If I hadn’t interfered with Grange, you would never have thought of it.”

She sat without moving, but the hasty utterance had its effect upon her.  Some of the rigidity went out of her attitude.  “My dear Nick,” she said, “what is the good of saying that?”

“Isn’t it true?” he persisted.

She hesitated, unwilling to wound him.

“You know it is true,” he declared with vehemence.  “If I had let him alone, he would have married Muriel, and this thing would never have happened.  God knows I did what was right, but if it doesn’t turn out right, I’m done for.  I never believed in eternal damnation before, but if this thing comes to pass it will be hell-fire for me for as long as I live.  For I shall never believe in God again.”

He swung away from her as though in bodily torture, came in contact with the table and bowed his head upon it.  For many seconds his breathing, thick and short, almost convulsed, was the only sound in the room.

As for Daisy, she sat still, staring at him dumbly, witnessing his agony till the sight of it became more than she could bear.  Then she moved, reached stiffly forward, and touched him.

“You are not to blame yourself, Nick,” she said.

He did not stir.  “I don’t,” he answered, and again fell silent.

At last he moved, seemed to pull himself together, finally got to his feet.

“Do you think you will be happy?” he said.  “Do you think you will ever manage to forget what you have sacrificed to this fetish you call Love,—­how you broke the heart of one of the best fellows in the world, and trampled upon the memory of your dead child—­the little chap you used to call the light of your eyes, who used to hold out his arms directly he saw you and cry when you went away?”