The silence was one which it seemed impossible to break, but which at last became unendurable.

“How often have I told you never to let me find you on your knees when I come home?” he at last asked, brutally.

“Oh! my beloved,” she exclaimed, “you will at least permit me to kneel to you!  See!  I am here in an attitude of supplication!  Listen to me!  Answer me!  What is the matter?  Do you not love me any more?  Tell me!”

He drew away his hands which she had clasped, and folded them across his breast.

“What has come between us?” she continued.  “Tell me why it is that instead of growing together, we are continually drawing apart?  Sometimes I feel that we are drifting eternally away from each other.  I can no longer get near to you.  An ocean seems to roll between us!  What does it mean?  Is this the nature of love?  Does it only last for a little time?  Do you not love me any more?  Will you never love me again?”

He still gazed sullenly at the floor.

“Will you not answer me?” she begged imploringly.  “I cannot endure it any longer.  My heart will break.  I am a woman, you must remember that!  I need love and sympathy so much.  It is my daily bread.  What is the matter?  I beseech you to tell me!  Is it your business?  Do you feel, as I do, that it is wrong?  I have sometimes thought so, and that you were worried by it and would be glad to give it up but for the fear that it might deprive me of some of these luxuries.  Is it that?  Oh! you do not know me.  You do not know how happy I should be to leave these things forever, and to go out into the street this very night a pauper.  It is wrong, David.  I see it now.  I feel it in the depths of my heart.”

“Wrong, is it,” he cried savagely, “and whose fault is it that I am in this wrong business?”

“It is mine,” she said, “mine!  I own it.  It was I who led you astray.  How often and how bitterly have I regretted it!  How strange it is, that love like mine could ever have done you harm.  I do not understand this.  I cannot see how love can do harm.  I have loved you so truly and so deeply, and I would give my life for you, and yet this love of mine has been the cause of all your trouble!  It would seem that love ought to bless us.  Would you not think so?”

He sat silent; any one but Pepeeta could have seen that this silence would soon be broken by an explosion.

“Speak to me, my love!” she pleaded, “speak to me.  I confess that I have wronged you.  But is there not something that I can do to make you happy?  Surely a wrong like this cannot be irreparable.  Tell me something that I can do to make you happy!”

With a violent and convulsive effort, he pushed her away and exclaimed fiercely, “Leave me!  Do not touch me!  I hate you!”

“Hate me?” she cried, “hate me?  Oh!  David.  You cannot mean it.  You cannot mean that you hate me?”