“Jealous?” He took her arm and led her nearer to the light of the solitary candle.  There he faced her, looking down into the weary pupils of her eyes.  “All these things you’ve been saying,” he said brutally—­“are lies—­the whole—­blessed—­pack of them.  You never went to the Palace Theatre, you went to the Duke of York’s.  You sat in the third row of the pit and covered your face with a programme whenever you thought we were looking in your direction.  You never went to supper afterwards.  You tracked Dolly’s car into the Strand—­running in the gutter to keep pace with it.  Jealous?  Great God!  No!  What have I to be jealous about?  What did you think you were doing—­eh?  What did you think you were going to gain by it?”

Up to a moment, she met his eyes; but when he railed at her thoughts of his jealousy, then all courage fell from her.  “Jealous?  Great God!  No!” She knew it was finished when he had said that and, beneath the weight of his contempt, she crumbled into the dust of pitiful obsession.

“Did you imagine,” he went on mercilessly—­“that I undertook the arrangement of this life with you with the thought for a moment in my mind that you would institute a close vigil over all my actions?”

“It was only because I knew you were being deceived,” she said brokenly.

“How being deceived?  By whom?”

“By your sister.”

“How has she deceived me?” He forced her eyes to his.  “How?” he repeated.

To defend her case, just as the woman in the Courts had done, she told him of what Devenish had said; notwithstanding that she herself had pleaded with Devenish to repeat nothing of what had passed between them.  Then, in the cold glittering of his eyes, she saw how she had doubly wronged her cause.

“So you speak to outsiders,” he said quietly, “about the things which I have told you in confidence.  My God!  It’s well that you and I are not married; well for you and well for me that we haven’t to smirch our names in order to get the release of a divorce.”

“Divorce?”

“Yes.  Great heavens!  Do you think I’m going to live on with you now?  Do you think I’m going to be followed in all my actions—­tracked, trapped—­and dandle the private detective on my knee?”

“Ah, but Jack!” She flung arms around his neck, her head bent close to his chest.  “I was jealous—­can’t you see that?  I was jealous of that girl.”

He put her firmly away from him.  “Oh, that be damned for a tale!” he exclaimed.

She shuddered.  She had sought for pity—­the last hope.  In his voice there was none.  If only she had had some one to guide her, some one to show her that it would all lead to this.  She would have held him longer; she would still have held him, had she not given way to let jealousy wrestle with her soul, flinging it at his feet for him to trample on.  Whatever had been the attitude of his mind before, she had afforded him no reason to