‘Then,’ she said, rising from the chair, ’you are not only unkind to me, but dishonest.’

Harvey flushed.

‘You are making yourself ill again.  We had far better not talk at all.’

‘I came up for no other purpose.  We have to settle everything.’

‘As far as I am concerned, everything is settled.’

‘Then I have no choice,’ said Alma, with subdued passion.  ’We shall live as we have done.  I shall accept any engagement that offers, in London or the country, and regard music as my chief concern.  You wished it, and so it shall be.’

Rolfe hesitated.  Believing that her illness was the real cause of this commotion, he felt it his duty to use all possible forbearance; yet he knew too well the danger of once more yielding, and at such a crisis.  The contest had declared itself —­ it was will against will; to decide it by the exertion of his sane strength against Alma’s hysteria might be best even for the moment.  He had wrought himself to the point of unwonted energy, a state of body and mind difficult to recover if now he suffered defeat.  Alma, turning from him, seemed about to leave the room.

‘One moment ——­’

She looked round, carelessly attentive.

’That wouldn’t be living as we have done.  It would be an intolerable state of things after this.’

‘It’s your own decision.’

‘Far from it.  I wouldn’t put up with it for a day.’

‘Then there’s only one thing left:  I must go and live by myself.’

‘I couldn’t stand that either, and wouldn’t try.’

‘I am no slave!  I shall live where and how I choose.’

’When you have thought about it more calmly, your choice will be the same as mine.’

Trembling violently, she backed away from him.  Harvey thought she would fall; he tried to hold her by the arm, but Alma shook him off, and in the same moment regained her -strength.  She faced him with a new defiance, which enabled her at last to speak the words hitherto unutterable.

‘How do you think I can bear to see Hughie with those children?’

Rolfe stood in amaze.  The suddenness of this reversion to another stage of their argument enhanced his natural difficulty in understanding her.  ‘What children?’

‘Those two —­ whatever their name may be.’

‘Wager’s boy and girl?’

‘You call them so.’

‘Are you going crazy?  I call them so? —­ what do you mean?’

A sudden misgiving appeared in Alma’s eyes; she stared at him so strangely that Harvey began to fear for her reason.

’What is it, dear?  What have you been thinking?  Tell me —­ speak like yourself ——­’

‘Why do you take so much interest in them?’ she asked faintly.

‘Heavens!  You have suspected ——?  What have you suspected?’

‘They are your own.  I have known it for a long time.’

Alarm notwithstanding, Rolfe was so struck by the absurdity of this charge that he burst into stentorian laughter.  Whilst he laughed, Alma sank into a chair, powerless, tearful.