“I told you—­the night of the ball—­of the murder,” she said with a shiver; “we saw Hurd cross the avenue.  I meant to have told you everything at once.”

“And you gave up that intention?” he asked her, when he had waited a little for more, and nothing came.

She turned upon him with a flash of the old defiance.

“How could I think of my own affairs?”

“Or of mine?” he said bitterly.

She made no answer.

Aldous got up and walked to the chimney-piece.  He was very pale, but his eyes were bright and sparkling.  When she looked up at him at last she saw that her task was done.  His scorn—­his resentment—­were they not the expiation, the penalty she had looked forward to all along?—­and with that determination to bear them calmly?  Yet, now that they were there in front of her, they stung.

“So that—­for all those weeks—­while you were letting me write as I did, while you were letting me conceive you and your action as I did, you had this on your mind?  You never gave me a hint; you let me plead; you let me regard you as wrapped up in the unselfish end; you sent me those letters of his—­those most misleading letters!—­and all the time—­”

“But I meant to tell you—­I always meant to tell you,” she cried passionately.  “I would never have gone on with a secret like that—­not for your sake—­but for my own.”

“Yet you did go on so long,” he said steadily; “and my agony of mind during those weeks—­my feeling towards you—­my—­”

He broke off, wrestling with himself.  As for her, she had fallen back in her chair, physically incapable of anything more.

He walked over to her side and took up his hat.

“You have done me wrong,” he said, gazing down upon her.  “I pray God you may not do yourself a greater wrong in the future!  Give me leave to write to you once more, or to send my friend Edward Hallin to see you.  Then I will not trouble you again.”

He waited, but she could give him no answer.  Her form as she lay there in this physical and moral abasement printed itself upon his heart.  Yet he felt no desire whatever to snatch the last touch—­the last kiss—­that wounded passion so often craves.  Inwardly, and without words, he said farewell to her.  She heard his steps across the room; the door shut; she was alone—­and free.

BOOK III.

“O Neigung, sage, wie hast du so tief
  Im Herzen dich verstecket? 
Wer hat dich, die verborgen schlief,
  Gewecket?”

CHAPTER I.

“Don’t suppose that I feel enthusiastic or sentimental about the ’claims of Labour,’” said Wharton, smiling to the lady beside him.  “You may get that from other people, but not from me.  I am not moral enough to be a fanatic.  My position is simplicity itself.  When things are inevitable, I prefer to be on the right side of them, and not on the wrong.  There is not much more in it than that.  I would rather be on the back of the ‘bore’ for instance, as it sweeps up the tidal river, than the swimmer caught underneath it.”