One evening they were at the theatre alone together.  It was a musical comedy, and they had a large stage-box.  May sat a little behind.  After having been darkened for a scenic conjuring trick, the stage was very suddenly thrown into brilliant light.  Edward turned with equal suddenness to share his appreciation of the effect with his wife, and the light and his eye caught her unawares.  She smiled instantly, but too late; he had seen the expression of her features.  For a second she felt as if the whole fabric which she had been building for the last six months had crumbled; but this disturbing idea passed as she recovered herself.

‘Let’s go home, eh?’ he said, at the end of the first act.

‘Yes,’ she agreed.  ‘It would be nice to be in early, wouldn’t it?’

In the brougham they exchanged the amiable banalities of people who are thoroughly intimate.  When they reached the flat, she poured out his whisky-and-potass, and sat on the arm of his particular arm-chair while he sipped it; then she whispered that she was going to bed.

‘Wait a bit,’ he said; ‘I want to talk to you seriously.’

‘Dear thing!’ she murmured, stroking his coat.

She had not the slightest notion of his purpose.

‘You’ve tried your best, May,’ he said bluntly, ’but you’ve failed.  I’ve suspected it for a long time.’

She flushed, and retired to a sofa, away from the orange electric lamp.

‘What do you mean, Edward?’ she asked.

‘You know very well what I mean, my dear,’ he replied.  ’What I told you—­that night!  You’ve tried to forget it.  You’ve tried to look at me as though you had forgotten it.  But you can’t do it.  It’s on your mind.  I’ve noticed it again and again.  I noticed it at the theatre to-night.  So I said to myself, “I’ll have it out with her.”  And I’m having it out.’

‘My dear Ted, I assure you——­’

‘No, you don’t,’ he stopped her.  ’I wish you did.  Now you must just listen.  I know exactly what sort of an idiot I was that night as well as you do.  But I couldn’t help it.  I was a fool to tell you.  Still, I thought I was dying.  I simply had a babbling fit.  People are like that.  You thought I was dying, too, didn’t you?’

‘Yes,’ she said quietly, ‘for a minute or two.’

’Ah!  It was that minute or two that did it.  Well, I let it out, the rotten little secret.  I admit it wasn’t on the square, that bit of business.  But, on the other hand, it wasn’t anything really bad—­like cruelty to animals or ruining a girl.  Of course, the chap was your father, but, but——.  Look here, May, you ought to be able to see that I was exactly the same man after I told you as I was before.  You ought to be able to see that.  My character wasn’t wrecked because I happened to split on myself, like an ass, about that affair.  Mind you, I don’t blame you.  You can’t help your feelings.  But do you suppose there’s a single man on this blessed earth without a secret?  I’m not going to grovel before gods or men.  I’m not going to pretend I’m so frightfully sorry.  I’m sorry in a way.  But can’t you see——­’