“He saw it—the advertisement,” he said. “My God, what a fatality!”
She began to laugh in a mirthless unnatural way, and stopped as suddenly.
“Yes, he must have seen it,” she said. “What does it mean? What will he do? We oughtn’t to doubt, I suppose, unless he is going to be untrue to himself for the first time in his life. But he won’t, of course; and then—what will come of it all?”
She gasped, and then laughed again hysterically.
“And our marriage! O, it is too ridiculous! Herbert, for pity’s sake say something in reason!”
“Reason or no reason spells nothing but our ruin,” he answered dejectedly. “His resolution is set, and it must give us away. I understand its purpose well enough; he thinks our marrying will put that—that other finally out of court.”
“But what other?” she said. “In heaven’s name, what other?”
He laughed, even more hollowly than she had.
“God knows!” he said. “The devil has hoist us with our own petard.”
She passed her hand across her eyes in great grief and misery.