Arthur did not speak.  Her words caused a ghastly suspicion to flash through his mind, and he could hardly contain himself.  He thought that some dreadful shock had turned her brain.  She buried her face in her hands.

‘Look here,’ he said, ’you must come away at once.  You can’t continue to live with him.  You must never go back to Skene.’

‘I can’t leave him.  We’re bound together inseparably.’

’But it’s monstrous.  There can be nothing to keep you to him.  Come back to Susie.  She’ll be very kind to you; she’ll help you to forget all you’ve endured.’

‘It’s no use.  You can do nothing for me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because, notwithstanding, I love him with all my soul.’

‘Margaret!’

’I hate him.  He fills me with repulsion.  And yet I do not know what there is in my blood that draws me to him against my will.  My flesh cries out for him.’

Arthur looked away in embarrassment.  He could not help a slight, instinctive movement of withdrawal.

‘Do I disgust you?’ she said.

He flushed slightly, but scarcely knew how to answer.  He made a vague gesture of denial.

‘If you only knew,’ she said.

There was something so extraordinary in her tone that he gave her a quick glance of surprise.  He saw that her cheeks were flaming.  Her bosom was panting as though she were again on the point of breaking into a passion of tears.

‘For God’s sake, don’t look at me!’ she cried.

She turned away and hid her face.  The words she uttered were in a shamed, unnatural voice.

’If you’d been at Monte Carlo, you’d have heard them say, God knows how they knew it, that it was only through me he had his luck at the tables.  He’s contented himself with filling my soul with vice.  I have no purity in me.  I’m sullied through and through.  He has made me into a sink of iniquity, and I loathe myself.  I cannot look at myself without a shudder of disgust.’

A cold sweat came over Arthur, and he grew more pale than ever.  He realized now he was in the presence of a mystery that he could not unravel.  She went on feverishly.

’The other night, at supper, I told a story, and I saw you wince with shame.  It wasn’t I that told it.  The impulse came from him, and I knew it was vile, and yet I told it with gusto.  I enjoyed the telling of it; I enjoyed the pain I gave you, and the dismay of those women.  There seem to be two persons in me, and my real self, the old one that you knew and loved, is growing weaker day by day, and soon she will be dead entirely.  And there will remain only the wanton soul in the virgin body.’

Arthur tried to gather his wits together.  He felt it an occasion on which it was essential to hold on to the normal view of things.

’But for God’s sake leave him.  What you’ve told me gives you every ground for divorce.  It’s all monstrous.  The man must be so mad that he ought to be put in a lunatic asylum.’