"Look at my life and theirs!"
"Very different, of course." They had never been joined in bonds of union with Fenning.
She leant forward and began to finger the flowers in her vase.
"It would have been better," she said, "if Jack had come. Then you could have gone back. I know you think you're bound not to go back now."
He took no notice of her last words, and asked no explanation of what "going back" meant.
"I'd sooner see you dead than with your husband," he said quietly.
Forgetting the flowers, she bent forward with clasped hands. "Would you, Ashley?" she whispered. The calm gravity of his speech was sweet incense to her. Speaking like that, he surely meant what he said! "How could you help me to bring him back, then?"
"I hadn't quite realised the sort of man he must be."
"Oh!" This was not just what she wanted to hear. "There's nothing particular the matter with him," she said.
"The things you told me—"