‘It is not known.’

‘It will be known.’

‘But this is a sealed secret.’

’Nothing is a secret that has been spoken.  It ’s in the air, and I have to breathe to live by it.  And I would rather it were out.  “She betrayed him.”  Rather that, than have them think—­anything!  They will exclaim, How could she!  I have been unable to answer it to you—­my own heart.  How?  Oh! our weakness is the swiftest dog to hunt us; we cannot escape it.  But I have the answer for them, that I trust with my whole soul none of them would have done the like.’

‘None, my Tony, would have taken it to the soul as you do.’

’I talk, dear.  If I took it honestly, I should be dumb, soon dust.  The moment we begin to speak, the guilty creature is running for cover.  She could not otherwise exist.  I am sensible of evasion when I open my lips.’

‘But Tony has told me all.’

‘I think I have.  But if you excuse my conduct, I am certain I have not.’

‘Dear girl, accounting for it, is not the same as excusing.’

’Who can account for it!  I was caught in a whirl—­Oh! nothing supernatural:  my weakness; which it pleases me to call a madness—­shift the ninety-ninth!  When I drove down that night to Mr. Tonans, I am certain I had my clear wits, but I felt like a bolt.  I saw things, but at too swift a rate for the conscience of them.  Ah! let never Necessity draw the bow of our weakness:  it is the soul that is winged to its perdition.  I remember I was writing a story, named the man of two minds.  I shall sign it, By the Woman of Two Natures.  If ever it is finished.  Capacity for thinking should precede the act of writing.  It should; I do not say that it does.  Capacity for assimilating the public taste and reproducing it, is the commonest.  The stuff is perishable, but it pays us for our labour, and in so doing saves us from becoming tricksters.  Now I can see that Mr. Redworth had it in that big head of his—­the authoress outliving her income!’

‘He dared not speak.’

‘Why did he not dare?’

‘Would it have checked you?’

’I was a shot out of a gun, and I am glad he did not stand in my way.  What power charged the gun, is another question.  Dada used to say, that it is the devil’s masterstroke to get us to accuse him.  “So fare ye well, old Nickie Ben.”  My dear, I am a black sheep; a creature with a spotted reputation; I must wash and wash; and not with water—­with sulphur-flames.’  She sighed.  ’I am down there where they burn.  You should have let me lie and die.  You were not kind.  I was going quietly.’

‘My love!’ cried Emma, overborne by a despair that she traced to the woman’s concealment of her bleeding heart, ’you live for me.  Do set your mind on that.  Think of what you are bearing, as your debt to Emma.  Will you?’

Tony bowed her head mechanically.