all, in the result, it was not he who was responsible for the destruction of the notes, but Rachel....  True, that in the night his vision of the affair had been less favourable to himself, but in the night illness had vitiated his judgment, which was not strange, seeing the dreadful accident he had experienced....  He might have died, and where would Rachel have been then?...  Was it not amazing that a young wife who had just escaped widowhood so narrowly could behave to a husband, a seriously sick husband, as Rachel was behaving to him?

He wished that he had not used the word “collar” in confessing to Rachel.  It was equal to “steal.”  Its significance was undebatable.  Yes, “collar” was a grave error of phrasing.

“I’m about done with this basin thing,” he said, with all possible dignity, and asked for brushes of various sorts for the completion of his toilet.  She served him slowly, coolly.  Her intention was clear to act as a capable but frigid nurse—­not as a wife.  He saw that she thought herself the wife of a thief, and that she was determined not to be the wife of a thief.  He could not bear it.  The situation must be changed immediately, because his pride was bleeding to death.

“I say,” he began, when she had taken away the towel and his tooth-powder.

“What?” Her tone challenged him.

“You wouldn’t let me finish last night.  I just wanted to tell you that I didn’t—­”

“I’ve no wish to hear another word.”  She stopped him, precisely as she had stopped him in the night.  She was at the washstand.

“I should be obliged if you’d look at me when you speak to me,” he reproached her manners.  “It’s only polite.”

She turned to him with face flaming.  They were both aware that his deportment was better than hers; and he perceived that the correction had abraded her susceptibility.

“I’ll look at you all right,” she answered, curtly and rather loudly.

He adopted a superior attitude.

“Of course I’m ill and weak,” he said, “but even if I am I suppose I’m entitled to some consideration.”  He lay back on the pillow.

“I can’t help your being ill,” she answered.  “It’s not my fault.  And if you’re so ill and weak as all that, it seems to me the best thing you can do is to be quiet and not to talk, especially about—­about that!”

“Well, perhaps you’ll let me be the best judge of what I ought to talk about.  Anyhow, I’m going to talk about it, and you’re going to listen.”

“I’m not.”

“I say you’re going to listen,” he insisted, turning on his side towards her.  “And why not?  Why, what on earth did I say last night, after all, I should like to know?”

“You said you’d taken the other part of the money of Mrs. Maldon’s—­that’s what you said.  You thought you were dying, and so you told me.”

“That’s just what I want to explain.  I’m going to explain it to you.”