She moaned.  ’At the vilest, I cannot regret my conduct—­bear what I may.  I can bear real pain:  what kills me is, the suspicion.  And I feel it like a guilty wretch!  And I do not feel the guilt!  I should do the same again, on reflection.  I do believe it saved him.  I do; oh!  I do, I do.  I cannot expect my family to see with my eyes.  You know them—­my brother and sisters think I have disgraced them; they put no value on my saving him.  It sounds childish; it is true.  He had fallen into a terrible black mood.’

‘He had an hour of gloom.’

‘An hour!’

‘But an hour, with him!  It means a good deal.’

’Ah, friend, I take your words.  He sinks terribly when he sinks at all.—­Spare us a little while.—­We have to judge of what is good in the circumstances:  I hear your reply!  But the principal for me to study is Victor.  You have accused me of being the voice of the enamoured woman.  I follow him, I know; I try to advise; I find it is wisdom to submit.  My people regard my behaviour as a wickedness or a madness.  I did save him.  I joined my fate with his.  I am his mate, to help, and I cannot oppose him, to distract him.  I do my utmost for privacy.  He must entertain.  Believe me, I feel for them—­sisters and brother.  And now that my sisters are married . . .  My brother has a man’s hardness.’

‘Colonel Dreighton did not speak harshly, at our last meeting.’

‘He spoke of me?’

‘He spoke in the tone of a brother.’

’Victor promises—­I won’t repeat it.  Yes, I see the house!  There appears to be a prospect, a hope—­I cannot allude to it.  Craye and Creckholt may have been some lesson to him.  Selwyn spoke of me kindly?  Ah, yes, it is the way with my people to pretend that Victor has been the ruin of me, that they may come round to family sentiments.  In the same way, his relatives, the Duvidney ladies, have their picture of the woman misleading him.  Imagine me the naughty adventuress!’—­Nataly falsified the thought insurgent at her heart, in adding:  ’I do not say I am blameless.’  It was a concession to the circumambient enemy, of whom even a good friend was apart, and not better than a respectful emissary.  The dearest of her friends belonged to that hostile world.  Only Victor, no other, stood with her against the world.  Her child, yes; the love of her child she had; but the child’s destiny was an alien phantom, looking at her with harder eyes than she had vision of in her family.  She did not say she was blameless, did not affect the thought.  She would have wished to say, for small encouragement she would have said, that her case could be pleaded.

Colney’s features were not inviting, though the expression was not repellent.  She sighed deeply; and to count on something helpful by mentioning it, reverted to the ‘prospect’ which there appeared to be.  ‘Victor speaks of the certainty of his release.’

His release!  Her language pricked a satirist’s gallbladder.  Colney refrained from speaking to wound, and enjoyed a silence that did it.