Richard De Jarnette bit his lip, cursing himself for having come on this errand. But he had come at Victor's earnest request, and he would not abandon the case.
"I recognize the justice of what you imply," he returned. "I can hardly ask for him any leniency on your part, but, after all, the child is Victor's as well as yours, and is his heir. It is but natural that he should wish to see him. For Philip's sake I trust that in some way your differences may be arranged."
"I may as well tell you that they will never be," she said. "As long as there was a shadow of a hope that I had misjudged him I held my peace. Not even to you would I say aught against him. Now that my faith in him is dead I tell you plainly I shall never be Victor De Jarnette's wife again. You asked me once what we quarreled about. I will tell you now, for this is the last conversation we will have on the subject. He was untrue to me." Her eyes blazed. "The night we quarreled I had found it out and I told him he must choose between us. He chose the woman who was not his wife. So far as I am concerned that choice is irrevocable.... This was enough. Surely this was enough. But it was not all, as you know. By his cruel desertion of me and his unborn child he made me a target for the arrows of gossip and slander. Do you ask me to forget all this?"
"Do you mean that you intend to secure a divorce?" he asked her plainly.
"No. I shall make no effort to secure a divorce. People get divorces because they want to marry again. I have had enough of marriage."
"And if he should want one?"
"I shall not oppose it. All that I want now is to live out my own life, what is left of it, in my own way, with my child."
He sat a moment in thought. Then he felt constrained to say,
"I trust there may never be any trouble about the child. Victor is reckless and determined. If he should take it into his head to lay claim to it, or try to take it from you—"
"If Victor De Jarnette should lay a finger of his hand upon the child he deserted," she said at white heat, "I should kill him."