“I’m very sorry for you, Molly. I’m not angry with you at all; I’ve no right to be; but I can’t live with you any longer; you must see that. I fancied it would come to this sooner or later. I don’t blame you; I dare say I ought to blame myself. But I can’t live on money that another man gives you; you must know that well enough.”
“I’ll give it back to him. I haven’t spent half of it. I’ll take it all back to him to-morrow. I’ll sell something to make it up.”
She began desperately tearing off bracelets and rings and dropping them on the floor.
But Alistair’s mind was made up. He was surprised to find how perfectly easy it was for him to act now that the moment had come. He had not known that he should be so glad to be free.
“Nothing that you could do now would alter the fact that you have taken money from Mendes,” he said. “We may as well make up our minds to what has happened. It was bound to come sooner or later. It is better to part like this than to drag on till we should be both sick of each other. It’s good-bye.”
“I will never speak to Mendes again. I will never see him,” sobbed Molly.
Stuart took a step towards the door of the room. She sprang to her feet and got in front of him, clinging round him to prevent his going. The scene became dreadful and ugly. He had to struggle step by step out of the room and into the hall. It was a fight to get his hat off the stand and put it on. He felt that it was imperative that he should get away there and then. Another hour spent with Molly would be irretrievable dishonour. At the front-door the miserable woman made a still more frantic struggle. He had to unclasp her fingers by main force, and to thrust her back with one hand while he turned the latch with the other. If he had not promptly slipped his foot in between door and doorpost she would have slammed the door to again before he could open it. And all the time she kept up an incessant wailing appeal to him for mercy. For the first time in his life Alistair felt that he was doing a cruel thing.
He was still shuddering from the sound of Molly’s last moan as he got into a cab at the street-corner and gave the direction:
“Colonsay House.”