Strangway.  Not!  Then, why—?  Beatrice!  You said, when you were right away—­I’ve waited——­

Beatrice.  I know.  It’s cruel—­it’s horrible.  But I told you not to hope, Michael.  I’ve done my best.  All these months at Mentone, I’ve been wondering why I ever let you marry me—­when that feeling wasn’t dead!

Strangway.  You can’t have come back just to leave me again?

Beatrice.  When you let me go out there with mother I thought—­I did think I would be able; and I had begun—­and then—­spring came!

Strangway.  Spring came here too!  Never so—­aching!  Beatrice, can’t you?

Beatrice.  I’ve something to say.

Strangway.  No!  No!  No!

Beatrice.  You see—­I’ve—­fallen.

Strangway.  Ah! [In a twice sharpened by pain] Why, in the name of mercy, come here to tell me that?  Was he out there, then?

Beatrice.  I came straight back to him.

Strangway.  To Durford?

Beatrice.  To the Crossway Hotel, miles out—­in my own name.  They don’t know me there.  I told you not to hope, Michael.  I’ve done my best; I swear it.

Strangway.  My God!

Beatrice.  It was your God that brought us to live near him!

Strangway.  Why have you come to me like this?

Beatrice.  To know what you’re going to do.  Are you going to divorce me?  We’re in your power.  Don’t divorce me—­Doctor and patient—­you must know—­it ruins him.  He’ll lose everything.  He’d be disqualified, and he hasn’t a penny without his work.

Strangway.  Why should I spare him?

Beatrice.  Michael; I came to beg.  It’s hard.

Strangway.  No; don’t beg!  I can’t stand it.

     [She shakes her head.]

Beatrice. [Recovering her pride] What are you going to do, then?  Keep us apart by the threat of a divorce?  Starve us and prison us?  Cage me up here with you?  I’m not brute enough to ruin him.

Strangway.  Heaven!

Beatrice.  I never really stopped loving him.  I never—­loved you,
Michael.

Strangway. [Stunned] Is that true? [Beatrice bends her head]
Never loved me?  Not—­that night—­on the river—­not——?

Beatrice. [Under her breath] No.

Strangway.  Were you lying to me, then?  Kissing me, and—­hating me?

Beatrice.  One doesn’t hate men like you; but it wasn’t love.

Strangway.  Why did you tell me it was?

Beatrice.  Yes.  That was the worst thing I’ve ever done.

Strangway.  Do you think I would have married you?  I would have burned first!  I never dreamed you didn’t.  I swear it!

Beatrice. [Very low] Forget it!