‘And did she not show in any way that she contemplated such a step?’

Arthur shook his head.

‘You had no quarrel?’

’We’ve never quarrelled.  She was in the best of spirits.  I’ve never seen her more gay.  She talked the whole time of our house in London, and of the places we must visit when we were married.’

Another contraction of pain passed over his face as he remembered that she had been more affectionate than she had ever been before.  The fire of her kisses still burnt upon his lips.  He had spent a night of almost sleepless ecstasy because he had been certain for the first time that the passion which consumed him burnt in her heart too.  Words were dragged out of him against his will.

‘Oh, I’m sure she loved me.’

Meanwhile Susie’s eyes were fixed on Haddo’s cruel telegram.  She seemed to hear his mocking laughter.

’Margaret loathed Oliver Haddo with a hatred that was almost unnatural.  It was a physical repulsion like that which people sometimes have for certain animals.  What can have happened to change it into so great a love that it has made her capable of such villainous acts?’

‘We mustn’t be unfair to him,’ said Arthur.  ’He put our backs up, and we were probably unjust.  He has done some very remarkable things in his day, and he’s no fool.  It’s possible that some people wouldn’t mind the eccentricities which irritated us.  He’s certainly of very good family and he’s rich.  In many ways it’s an excellent match for Margaret.’

He was trying with all his might to find excuses for her.  It would not make her treachery so intolerable if he could persuade himself that Haddo had qualities which might explain her infatuation.  But as his enemy stood before his fancy, monstrously obese, vulgar, and overbearing, a shudder passed through him.  The thought of Margaret in that man’s arms tortured him as though his flesh were torn with iron hooks.

‘Perhaps it’s not true.  Perhaps she’ll return,’ he cried.

‘Would you take her back if she came to you?’ asked Susie.

’Do you think anything she can do has the power to make me love her less?  There must be reasons of which we know nothing that caused her to do all she has done.  I daresay it was inevitable from the beginning.’

Dr Porhoet got up and walked across the room.

’If a woman had done me such an injury that I wanted to take some horrible vengeance, I think I could devise nothing more subtly cruel than to let her be married to Oliver Haddo.’

‘Ah, poor thing, poor thing!’ said Arthur.  ’If I could only suppose she would be happy!  The future terrifies me.’

‘I wonder if she knew that Haddo had sent that telegram,’ said Susie.

‘What can it matter?’

She turned to Arthur gravely.