“Marcella!”

Even her bitter mood was pierced by the tone.  She had never wounded him so deeply yet, and for a moment he felt the situation intolerable; the surging grievance and reproach, with which his heart was really full, all but found vent in an outburst which would have wholly swept away his ordinary measure and self-control.  But then, as he looked at her, it struck his lover’s sense painfully how pale and miserable she was.  He could not scold!  But it came home to him strongly that for her own sake and his it would be better there should be explanations.  After all things had been going untowardly for many weeks.  His nature moved slowly and with much self-doubt, but it was plain to him now that he must make a stand.

After his cry, her first instinct was to apologise.  Then the words stuck in her throat.  To her, as to him, they seemed to be close on a trial of strength.  If she could not influence him in this matter—­so obvious, as it seemed to her, and so near to her heart—­what was to become of that lead of hers in their married life, on which she had been reckoning from the beginning?  All that was worst in her and all that was best rose to the struggle.

But, as he did not speak, she looked up at last.

“I was waiting,” he said in a low voice.

“What for?”

“Waiting till you should tell me you did not mean what you said.”

She saw that he was painfully moved; she also saw that he was introducing something into their relation, an element of proud self-assertion, which she had never felt in it before.  Her own vanity instantly rebelled.

“I ought not to have said exactly what I did,” she said, almost stifled by her own excitement, and making great efforts not to play the mere wilful child; “that I admit.  But it has been clear to me from the beginning that—­that”—­her words hurried, she took up a book and restlessly lifted it and let it fall—­“you have never looked at this thing justly.  You have looked at the crime as any one must who is a landowner; you have never allowed for the provocation; you have not let yourself feel pity—­”

He made an exclamation.

“Do you know where I was before I went into the inquest?”

“No,” she said defiantly, determined not to be impressed, feeling a childish irritation at the interruption.

“I was with Mrs. Westall.  Harden and I went in to see her.  She is a hard, silent woman.  She is clearly not popular in the village, and no one comes in to her.  Her”—­he hesitated—­“her baby is expected before long.  She is in such a state of shock and excitement that Clarke thinks it quite possible she may go out of her mind.  I saw her sitting by the fire, quite silent, not crying, but with a wild eye that means mischief.  We have sent in a nurse to help Mrs. Jellison watch her.  She seems to care nothing about her boy.  Everything that that woman most desired in life has been struck from her at a blow.  Why?  That a man who was in no stress of poverty, who had friends and employment, should indulge himself in acts which he knew to be against the law, and had promised you and his wife to forego, and should at the same time satisfy a wild beast’s hatred against the man, who was simply defending his master’s property.  Have you no pity for Mrs. Westall or her child?”