“Don’t be melodramatic,” he begged.  “In the first place, what have you to tell?  In the second place, in this country, at any rate, a wife cannot give evidence against her husband.”

“You admit that something has happened?” she asked eagerly.

“I admit nothing,” he replied, “except that Anthony Palliser has disappeared under circumstances which you and I know about, that he has forged my name and entered into a disgraceful conspiracy with you, and that he has stolen from my wife a political document of great importance to me.”

“I knew nothing about the political document,” she said quickly.

“Possibly not,” he agreed.  “Still, the fact remains that Tony was a thoroughly bad lot.  I find myself able to regard the possibility of an accident having happened to him with equanimity.  Have you anything further to say?”

She sat looking down on the floor for several minutes.  She had probably, Tallente decided as he watched her, some way of suffering in secret, all the more terrible because of its repression.  When she looked up, her face seemed pinched and older.  Her voice, however, was steady.

“Let us have an understanding,” she said.  “You do not desire my return to Martinhoe?”

“I do not,” he agreed.

“And what about Cheverton House here?”

“I have nothing to do with it,” he replied.  “You persuaded me to allow you to take it and I have lived with you there.  I never pretended, however, to be able to contribute to its upkeep.  You can live there, if you choose, or wherever else you please.”

“Alone?”

“It would be more reputable.”

“You mean that you will not return there?”

“I do mean that.”

His cold firmness daunted her.  She was, besides, at a disadvantage; she had no idea how much he knew.

“I can make you come back to me if I choose,” she threatened.

“The attempt would cost you a great deal of money,” he told her, “and the result would be the same.  Frankly, Stella,” he went on, striving to impart a note of friendliness into his tone, “we made a bad bargain and it is no use clinging to the impossible.  I have tried to keep my end of it.  Technically I have kept it.  If I have failed in other ways, I am very sorry.  The whole thing was a mistake.  We have been frank about it more than once, so we may just as well be frank about it now.  I married for money and you for position.  I have not found your money any particular advantage, and I have realised that as a man gets on in life there are other and more vital things which he misses though making such a bargain.  You are not satisfied with your position, and perhaps you, too, have something of the same feeling that I have.  You are your own mistress and you are a very rich woman, and in whichever direction you may decide to seek for a larger measure of content, you will not find me in the Way.”

“I am not sentimental,” she said coldly.  “I know what I want and I am not afraid to own it.  I want to be a Peeress.”