"You love this girl ... girl! ... her confessions to Luce Abinger here to-night were not very girlish ... I could not hear all that she said to him, but I heard enough.... She told him that she gave herself to some man in a garden three years ago ... that she belonged only to that man and could never love any other——"
"No more," broke fiercely from Carson's white lips.
"But you shall hear!" she cried, flinging out a hand and catching his arm. "She has had a child ... she boasted of it ... the child of the man in the garden.... Do you deny it? Do you deny it?" she cried, turning to Poppy. But Poppy did not deny, did not speak: only lifted her head proudly and smiled.
"There ... there ... you see?... let her deny it if she can!"
Stiffly Carson turned his head now and looked at Poppy; his lips twisted like a man's who is tasting poison; his eyes demanded.
"Yes, I have borne a son," she said simply.
For a moment there was such a silence as is found in rooms where the dead are lying. Then Mary Capron broke it again:
"She is proud of it!... You see ... you see what you love? Is it possible that for a woman like that ... that for her you can turn from my love, I who would let men brand me in the face for you—who——"
"Oh, for God's sake!—are you mad?... be silent." Carson caught her hands roughly and made to draw her away. But she was beyond herself. "And now Nick is dying ... I have heard them saying it ... and they are looking for me to go to him, but I will not ... I will not!... I will stay here with you, Eve—I am terrified of blood—I—" she finished on a high note that was almost a shriek, for Abinger had risen quietly from his chair in the corner and was before her with his scarred, bleeding face. Then at last she was silent. What there was to be said, Abinger said—blandly, softly.
"Oh! I think you had b-better come, Mary. It will not be the first t-time you've seen a man cut about. You remember the night this was done?" He touched his face and she shrank away blenching. "The night Carmen punished me for our sins. You were quite brave then. You saw the whole performance without uttering a scream or a cry that might have brought people to the scene and discovered you. No one should blame you for that, but—I think you could be brave enough to see Nick." He held out his hand to her. She shrank from him, wilting with shame, her eyes frozen in her face; but he was inexorable.