"I believe that it's more true than he knew. For even if nothing actual comes of the thing done, it's still there, recorded in the character. Harry, we are in the clutch of finished things."
Her voice rose in a low cry and brought Harry swiftly round upon his heel. Her words hit him shrewdly, but her aspect more shrewdly still. She was still standing close by the door. She was dressed in a gown of pale blue and gold with a bright ribbon of blue in her hair. Her cloak had slipped from her shoulders to her feet, her gloves were twisted in her hands, her eyes wide and dark with trouble looked out from a face which was piteously wistful. She made unconsciously a poignant appeal to him. The delicate loveliness of her youth and the gay panoply of her attire contrasted so strikingly with the quivering misery of her face.
"What makes you believe that, Cynthia?" He crossed the room to her side and shook her arm with a friendly gesture familiar to her. "Poizat's case is not enough to build a world of theory on."
"Nor do I," replied Cynthia. "I was adding to that case another." Harry Rames flinched.
"What other?" he asked with an effort.
"Years ago in Argentina I once listened at a door," she began, and in Harry's eyes shone a great relief. "What I heard frightened me. I lay awake in terror all that night. I have lived in fear ever since. I could not shake fear off even after I knew there was no longer any cause for fear. I can find causes anywhere. Fear's the truth of me. Most of the things which I have done have been done from fear."
"I never understood that, Cynthia."
"I never spoke of it before."
"Fear even prompted your marriage?"
Cynthia looked him frankly in the face.