you that I was not easily surprised—­but—­I was thinking of others.—­it did not occur to me that—­that my own wife—­” he paused, steadying his voice,—­ then continued—­“that my own wife’s honour was involved in the matter—­” he paused again.  “Sentiment is of course out of place—­ nobody is supposed to feel anything nowadays—­or to suffer—­or to break one’s heart, as the phrase goes,—­that would be considered abnormal, or bad form,—­but I had the idea—­a foolish one, no doubt!—­that though you may not have married me for love on your own part, you did so because you recognised the love,—­the truth—­ the admiration and respect—­on mine.  I was at any rate happy in believing you did!—­I never dreamed you married me for the sake of convenience!—­to kill the memory of a scandal, and establish a safe position—­”

She moved restlessly and gathered her ermine cloak about her as though to rise and go.

“One moment!” he went on—­“After what you have told me I hope you see clearly that it is impossible we can live together under the same roof again.  If you could endure it, I could not!”

She sprang up, pale and excited.

“What?  You mean to make trouble?  I, who have kept my own counsel all these years, am to be disgraced because I have at last confided in you?  You will scandalise society—­you will separate from me—­”

She stopped, half choked by a rising paroxysm of rage.

He looked at her as he might have looked at some small angry animal.

“I shall make no trouble,” he answered, quietly—­“and I shall not scandalise society.  But I cannot live with you.  I will go away at once on some convenient excuse—­abroad—­anywhere—­and you can say whatever you please of my prolonged absence.  If I could be of any use or protection to the girl I saw last night—­the daughter of my friend Pierce Armitage—­I would stay, but circumstances render any such service from me impossible.  Besides, she needs no one to assist her—­she has made a position for herself—­a position more enviable than yours or mine.  You have that to think about by way of—­consolation?—­or reproach?”

She stood drawn up to her full height, looking at him.

“You cannot forgive me, then?” she said.

He shuddered.

“Forgive you!  Is there a man who could forgive twenty years of deliberate deception from the wife he thought the soul of honour?  Maude, Maude!  We live in lax times truly, when men and women laugh at principle and good faith, and deal with each other less honestly than the beasts of the field,—­but for me there is a limit!—­a limit you have passed!  I think I could pardon your wrong to me more readily than I can pardon your callous desertion of the child you brought into the world—­your lack of womanliness—­ motherliness!—­your deliberate refusal to give Pierce Armitage the chance of righting the wrong he had committed in a headstrong, heart-strong rush of thoughtless passion!—­he would have