"Forewarned is forearmed," he said, with a sort of sardonic snarl; "I shall know now what steps to take to protect my honour."
"You know perfectly well that your honour—what you call your honour—is safe," she replied proudly. "If I am not to be trusted, he is. Do not insult us any more. We have had enough cruelty; we shall have quite enough to bear—he and I."
And so they went on with these bitter and defiant recriminations—Mr. Kingston, of course, insisting upon giving due prominence to his own wrongs, which were very real ones in their way, and both of them making reckless proposals with respect to their domestic arrangements—until suddenly, without any apparent warning, Rachel went off into wild hysterics, and the doctor had to be sent for.
Perhaps it was the best thing that could have happened under all the circumstances. She was very ill for several hours; and in the morning, when passion was spent, and she was lying in her bed still and quiet, with her head swathed in wet bandages, her husband knelt down beside her and asked her to forgive him.
"It was for love of you that I did it," he said; "and I am punished, too. We can't undo it now, Rachel, if we would, and there's no good in making a public talk and scandal. Let bygones be bygones, won't you, dear?"
She lifted her heavy eyes to his face. They were cold and hard no longer, but unutterably dull and sad.
"Yes," she said wearily; "we have both been wrong; we have injured one another. We must try to make the best of it; it is the only thing we can do now."
He kissed her and stroked her face, and adjusted the wet bandages.
"There, there," he said soothingly, "we both forgot ourselves a little. We said a great deal more than we meant, I daresay. People do when they are out of temper."
And he bade her go to sleep, told her he would take her for a drive in the afternoon if she felt well enough, and went forth with the sense that he was treating her magnanimously to receive and reply to inquiries after her health in person.