“Tita, listen to me——­”

“No.  Not I!  You must be a fool to talk to me like this.  Of what use is it?  What good?  If you loved me for ever, what good could come of it?  I don’t love you!  Ah!”—­she catches her breath and looks straight at him with an undying sense of indignation—­“Maurice was right about you, and I was wrong.  He saw through you, I didn’t.  I”—­with a little inward glance into her own feelings—­“I shan’t forgive you for that, either!”

“You mean——­”

“It really doesn’t matter,” says Tita, cruel for the first time in all her sweet young life.  The light is so dim that she cannot see his face distinctly.  Perhaps if she had, she would have been kinder.  “I mean nothing.  Only go; go at once!  Do you hear?"

Her childish voice grows imperious.

“I am going,” says Hescott dully—­“in the morning.”

“Oh!  I’m glad”—­smiting her hands together—­“by the early train?”

“The earliest!”

Hescott’s soul seems dying within him.  All at once the truth is clear to him, or, at least, half of it.  She may not love her husband, but, beyond all question, love for him—­Hescott—­has never entered into her mind.

“And a good thing too!” says Tita wrathfully.  “I hope I shall never see you here again.  I could never bear to look at you after this!” She is standing trembling with agitation before him, like one full-filled with wrath.  “To-day—­I shall not forget that. To-day—­and that story”—­she stops as if choking—­“what did you mean by telling that story?” demands she, almost violently.  “Everyone there knew what you meant.  It dragged me down to the ground.  I hated you for it!  You invented it.  You know you did, just to humiliate him! You think Maurice hates me, but he doesn’t.  It is a lie!” She pauses, her lovely eyes aflame.  “It is a lie!” she repeats passionately.

“If so——­” begins Hescott, but in so low a tone, and so dead, that she scarcely heeds it.

“And to call me an angel before them all.  Ah!  I could read through you.  So could everyone.  It was an insult!  I won’t be called an angel.  I am just what Maurice is, and no more.  I wonder Maurice didn’t kill you—­and he would, only you were his guest.  So would I—­only——­”

She breaks off.  The tears are running down her cheeks.  She makes a little swift turn of her body towards him.

“Oh, Tom! and I did so believe in you!"

There is a short silence fraught with misery for one soul, at all events.

“Believe in me still,” says Tom Hescott, in a queer, low tone.  “Believe in me now—­and for ever—­to”—­with passionate fondness—­“the last moment of your life.”  He draws his breath sharply.  “And now good-bye.”

He struggles with himself, and, failing in the struggle, catches her suddenly to his breast, and there holds her to his heart for half a minute, perhaps.