“Don’t! don’t!” she wailed.  “If you only knew!  Let me try to tell you—­will you?” she urged, pitifully.  “It may be better if I tell some one—­if I don’t keep it all to myself, and think, and think.”

She clasped her hands tight, with the old gesture he remembered when she was struggling for self-control, and waited a moment.

Presently she began to speak in a low, hurried tone:  “It began before you came.  I know now what the feeling was that I was afraid to acknowledge to myself.  I used to try and smother it; I used to repeat things to myself all day—­poems, stupid rhymes—­anything to keep my thoughts quite underneath—­but I—­hated John before you came!  We had been married nearly a year then.  I never loved him.  Of course you are going to say, ‘Why did you marry him?’” She looked drearily over the placid sea.  “Why did I marry him?  I don’t know; for the reason that hundreds of ignorant, inexperienced girls marry, I suppose.  My home wasn’t a happy one.  I was miserable, and oh—­restless.  I wonder if men know what it feels like to be restless?  Sometimes I think they can’t even guess.  John wanted me very badly; nobody wanted me at home particularly.  There didn’t seem to be any point in my life.  Do you understand? . . .  Of course, being alone with him in that little camp in that silent plain”—­she shuddered—­“made things worse.  My nerves went all to pieces.  Everything he said, his voice, his accent, his walk, the way he ate, irritated me so that I longed to rush out sometimes and shriek—­and go mad.  Does it sound ridiculous to you to be driven mad by such trifles?  I only know I used to get up from the table sometimes and walk up and down outside, with both hands over my mouth to keep myself quiet.  And all the time I hated myself—­how I hated myself!  I never had a word from him that wasn’t gentle and tender.  I believe he loved the ground I walked on.  Oh, it is awful to be loved like that when you—­” She drew in her breath with a sob.  “I—­I—­it made me sick for him to come near me—­to touch me.”  She stopped a moment.

Broomhurst gently laid his hand on her quivering one.  “Poor little girl!” he murmured.

“Then you came,” she said, “and before long I had another feeling to fight against.  At first I thought it couldn’t be true that I loved you—­it would die down.  I think I was frightened at the feeling; I didn’t know it hurt so to love any one.”

Broomhurst stirred a little.  “Go on,” he said, tersely.

“But it didn’t die,” she continued, in a trembling whisper, “and the other awful feeling grew stronger and stronger—­hatred; no, that is not the word—­loathing for—­for—­John.  I fought against it.  Yes,” she cried, feverishly, clasping and unclasping her hands; “Heaven knows I fought it with all my strength, and reasoned with myself, and—­oh, I did everything, but—­” Her quick-falling tears made speech difficult.