“I haven’t finished,” she told him ominously.

“Then for heaven’s sake get on with it and let’s have it over,” he begged.

“Oh, you’re impossible!” Philippa exclaimed bitterly.  “Listen.  I give you one chance more.  Tell me the truth?  Is there anything in your health of which I do not know?  Is there any possible explanation of your extraordinary behaviour which, for some reason or other, you have kept to yourself?  Give me your whole confidence.”

Sir Henry, for a moment, was serious enough.  He stood looking down at her a little wistfully.

“My dear,” he told her, “I have nothing to say except this.  You are my very precious wife.  I have loved you and trusted you since the day of our marriage.  I am content to go on loving and trusting you, even though things should come under my notice which I do not understand.  Can’t you accept me the same way?”

Philippa, momentarily uneasy, was nevertheless rebellious.

“Accept you the same way?  How can I!  There is nothing in my life to compare in any way with the tragedy of your—­”

She paused, as though unwilling to finish the sentence.  He waited patiently, however, for her to proceed.

“Of my what?”

Philippa compromised.

“Lethargy,” she pronounced triumphantly.

“An excellent word,” he murmured.

“It is too mild a one, but you are my husband,” she remarked.

“That reminds me,” he said quietly.  “You are my wife.”

“I know it,” she admitted, “but I am also a woman, and there are limits to my endurance.  If you can give me no explanation of your behaviour, Henry, if you really have no intention of changing it, then there is only one course left open for me.”

“That sounds rather alarming—­what is it?” he demanded.

Philippa lifted her head a little.  This was the pronouncement towards which she had been leading.

“From to-day,” she declared, “I cease to be your wife.”

His fingers paused in the manipulation of the tobacco with which he was filling his pipe.  He turned and looked at her.

“You what?”

“I cease to be your wife.”

“How do you manage that?” he asked.

“Don’t jest,” she begged.  “It hurts me so.  What I mean is surely plain enough.  I will continue to live under your roof if you wish it, or I am perfectly willing to go back to Wood Norton.  I will continue to bear your name because I must, but the other ties between us are finished.”

“You don’t mean this, Philippa,” he said gravely.

“But I do mean it,” she insisted.  “I mean every word I have spoken.  So far as I am concerned, Henry, this is your last chance.”

There was a knock at the door.  Mills entered with a note upon a salver.  Sir Henry took it up, glanced questioningly at his wife, and tore open the envelope.

“There will be no answer, Mills,” he said.