“You tricked him,” he cried.

“I didn’t dare to tell him,” Stella pleaded, wringing her hands.  “I didn’t dare to lose him.”

“You tricked him,” Thresk repeated; and at the note of anger in his voice Stella found herself again.

“You accuse and condemn me?” she asked quietly.

“Yes.  A thousand times, yes,” he exclaimed hotly, and she answered with another question winged on a note of irony: 

“Because I tricked him?  Or because I—­married him?”

Thresk was silenced.  He recognised the truth implied in the distinction, he turned to her with a smile.

“Yes,” he answered.  “You are right, Stella.  It’s because you married him.”

He stood for a moment in thought.  Then with a gesture of helplessness he picked up her cloak.  She watched his action and as he came towards her she cried: 

“But I’ll tell him now, Henry.”  In a way she owed it to this man who cared for her so much, who was so prepared for sacrifice, if sacrifice could help.  That morning on the downs was swept from her memory now.  “Yes, I’ll tell him now,” she said eagerly.  Since Henry Thresk set such store upon that confession, why so very likely would Dick, her husband, too.

But Thresk shook his head.

“What’s the use now?  You give him no chance.  You can’t set him free”; and Stella was as one turned to stone.  All argument seemed sooner or later to turn to that one dread alternative which had already twice that night forced itself on her acceptance.

“Yes, I can, Henry, and I will, I promise you, if he wishes to be free.  I can do it quite easily, quite naturally.  Any woman could.  So many of us take things to make us sleep.”

There was no boastfulness in her voice or manner, but rather a despairing recognition of facts.

“Good God, you mustn’t think of it!” said Thresk eagerly.  “That’s too big a price to pay.”

Stella shook her head wistfully.

“You hear it said, Henry,” she answered with an indescribable wistfulness, “that women will do anything to keep the men they love.  They’ll do a great deal—­I am an example—­but not always everything.  Sometimes love runs just a little stronger.  And then it craves that the loved one shall get all he wants to have.  If Dick wants his freedom I too, then, shall want him to have it.”

And while Thresk stood with no words to answer her there came a knocking upon the door.  It was gentle, almost furtive, but it startled them both like a clap of thunder.  For a moment they stood rigid.  Then Thresk silently handed Stella her cloak and pointed towards the window.  He began to speak aloud.  A word or two revealed his plan to Stella Ballantyne.  He was rehearsing a speech which he was to make in the Courts before a jury.  But the handle of the door rattled and now old Mr. Hazlewood’s voice was heard.

“Thresk!  Are you there?”

Once more Thresk pointed to the window.  But Stella did not move.