“There was no question of that, Honora.  I was away when—­when they learned you were here.  As soon as I returned, I came.”

“Tell me how they feel,” she said, in a low voice.

“They think only of you.  And the thought that you are unhappy overshadows all others.  They believe that it is to them you should have come, if you were in trouble instead of coming here.”

“How could I?” she cried.  “How can you ask?  That is what makes it so hard, that I cannot be with them now.  But I should only have made them still more unhappy, if I had gone.  They would not have understood—­they cannot understand who have every reason to believe in marriage, why those to whom it has been a mockery and a torture should be driven to divorce.”

“Why divorce?” he said.

“Do you mean—­do you mean that you wish me to give you the reasons why I felt justified in leaving my husband?”

“Not unless you care to,” he replied.  “I have no right to demand them.  I only ask you to remember, Honora, that you have not explained these reasons very clearly in your letters to your aunt and uncle.  They do not understand them.  Your uncle was unable, on many accounts, to come here; and he thought that—­that as an old friend, you might be willing to talk to me.”

“I can’t live with—­with my husband,” she cried.  “I don’t love him, and he doesn’t love me.  He doesn’t know what love is.”

Peter Erwin glanced at her, but she was too absorbed then to see the thing in his eyes.  He made no comment.

“We haven’t the same tastes, nor—­nor the same way of looking at things —­the same views about making money—­for instance.  We became absolute strangers.  What more is there to say?” she added, a little defiantly.

“Your husband committed no—­flagrant offence against you?” he inquired.

“That would have made him human, at least,” she cried.  “It would have proved that he could feel—­something.  No, all he cares for in the world is to make money, and he doesn’t care how he makes it.  No woman with an atom of soul can live with a man like that.”

If Peter Erwin deemed this statement a trifle revolutionary, he did not say so.

“So you just—­left him,” he said.

“Yes,” said Honora.  “He didn’t care.  He was rather relieved than otherwise.  If I had lived with him till I died, I couldn’t have made him happy.”

“You tried, and failed,” said Peter.

She flushed.

“I couldn’t have made him happier,” she declared, correcting herself.  “He has no conception of what real happiness is.  He thinks he is happy,-he doesn’t need me.  He’ll be much more—­contented without me.  I have nothing against him.  I was to blame for marrying him, I know.  But I have only one life to live, and I can’t throw it away, Peter, I can’t.  And I can’t believe that a woman and a man were intended to live together without love.  It is too horrible.  Surely that isn’t your idea of marriage!”