"You—­to ask me that!” exclaims he fiercely.

“It was not like you,” says she, interrupting him in a measure, as though unable to keep back the words, the accusations, that are rushing to her lips.  “I have known you so long—­so long.  Ah!  I thought I knew you.  I believed you faithful.  I believed you many things.  But, at all events”—­with a sad and desolate reproach—­“I never believed you fond of money.”

“Marian!” She has laid her hand upon his arm, and now he flings it from him.  “That you should accuse me! Money!  What was money to me in comparison with your love?  But you—­you——­”

He does not go on:  it is so hard to condemn her.  He is looking at her in the tender light with eyes that seek to read her heart, and he is very pale.  She can see that, in spite of the warm, pink glow of the lamps behind them.

“Well—­and I?” questions she, with deep agitation.

How handsome he is! how lovable!  Oh for the good sweet past she has so madly flung aside!

“You refused me,” says he slowly, “you, on whom my soul was set.”

“For your own good,” in a stifled voice.

“Don’t repeat that wretched formula,” exclaims he vehemently.  “It means nothing.  It was not for my good.  It was for my damnation, I think.  You see how things are going.”

He stops abruptly here, as if thinking of something, and she knows and resents the knowledge that his mind has gone back to Tita—­resents it, though his thought has been condemnatory of his wife.  Why can’t he forget her altogether?

“Yes I meant it for your good,” says she, in a whisper.

Her heart is beating wildly.

“You refused me,” persists he, in a dull tone.  “That is all I remember.  You refused me—­how many times?”

She turns away from him.

“Once too often, at all events,” replies she, in a low, wretched voice.

She makes a movement as if to go back to the lighted rooms beyond, but he catches her and compels her to stay with him.

“What do you mean?” demands he sternly.  “To say that to me—­and now—­now, when it is too late.”

“Too late, indeed!” echoes she.

Her voice sounds like the voice of one dying.  She covers her face with her hands.  He knows that she is crying.  Very gently he takes down one of the hands and holds it between both his own, and presses it to his lips.  How dear she has always been to him!  He realizes in this moment how dear she still is.

“Marian, have pity on me,” says he hoarsely.  “I have suffered a great deal.  And your tears——­”

“My tears!  They will avail me nothing,” says she bitterly.  “When you have forsaken me, what is left?”

_ “Have_ I forsaken you?” He pauses, as if to control the agitation that is threatening to overcome him.  “When all I cared for was lost to me,” he goes on presently, his eyes upon the ground, “when you had told me that marriage between us was impossible, then one thing remained, and one only—­ambition.  The old place had been ours for two centuries—­it had its claim on me.  If love was not to be my portion, I felt I might as well do all I could for the old name—­the old place.”