The truth had come to her, here on the river in the moonlight, with sudden and overpowering force. She loved her husband, loved him with all her generous, impulsive heart--and this in spite of his strict views and old-fashioned opinions, his tiresome jealousy, his age! And yet at this very moment she was doing something that, if he could know of it, would hurt and anger him and shake his trust in her, destroy all his pleasure in his holiday, perhaps create a rupture between them that never could be healed! What a fool she had been to dine with Mrs. Roy, to allow herself to be dragged into this idiotic escapade. And here was Guy behaving like a lunatic because she was alone with him on the river in the middle of the night. How could she ever explain it all to George and persuade him to forgive her?
Before her mental vision rose her husband's handsome, careworn face--the keen grey eyes, the dark hair frosted at the temples; and with it came remembrance, realisation of all he must have suffered in the past. How often he had told her that she had restored to him his trust in womanhood, had made him happy when all hope of happiness had seemed denied him.
In a measure she had failed him, too. He would be certain to hear of to-night's folly, even if she told him nothing about it herself. The only thing to do was to get home as quickly as possible. Guy Greaves sat opposite to her, obdurate, motionless, thinking only of himself and his stupid, boyish adoration, which was nothing compared with the love of a man experienced and tried. She felt she hated Guy, and all the superficial view of life that he represented to her penitent soul.
"Oh, go on--go on!" she cried in frightened desperation. "I must get home. I ought never to have come. I can't bear it. If you don't row, I'll never speak to you again."
He took up the oars with reluctance. She pulled the rudder-lines again, first one, then the other. The boat shot crookedly, with a shivering shock, on to a sandbank, and stuck fast. Young Greaves said "Damn!" and Trixie screamed. She stood up.
"For God's sake sit down!" implored Guy, in fear that she might spring from the boat, a hideous thought of lurking crocodiles flashing through his mind.
She sank back to her seat, mute, apprehensive, while he tried vainly to refloat the boat.
"Give me an oar. Let me help," she said. He passed it to her. They used all their strength without avail.
"Shout!" she ordered him. "The others may hear you and come back."
He obeyed her, and the sound echoed wide and far across the water. But the only answer was the hooting of an owl in some bushes on the bank, and the scrambling of some startled little creature near them in the sand.