"Don't, don't say that sort of thing to me!" exclaimed Horatia. "I am doing nothing at all heroic. It is only necessity. It has nothing to do with God or religion, or because I believe for one moment in Tristram's foolish ideas—it is because ... because..." It was impossible to go on, for his voice had touched some secret spring in her, some deep-buried self which, suddenly released, was struggling to respond—as once before, at the same voice, it had struggled in St. Mary's. She sat down again and hid her face in her hands.
"Because," said Dormer, still more gently, "you have found out the secret of love—the willingness to go without the beloved for the beloved's sake."
"I do not know what I have found out," said Horatia after a moment, passing her handkerchief over her eyes. "I am only following an instinct. I mean to go back to France, and after that ... I don't care much what happens." She paused again. "With Tristram I should have been safe. He was my hope. I know I have done wrong, very wrong, but am I never to be forgiven, never to be allowed to forget the past?—O!" she broke out passionately, "your God is a cruel God! He is cruel to Tristram and to me. I don't believe what you said in your sermon about suffering—I can't believe it and I won't believe it! ... Why are you making me talk to you?"
"Because I want to help you. Will you not let me try—for Tristram's sake?"
Horatia looked at him for a moment, then she rose and went to the window. When she turned round again, some three minutes later, the buried self had won, and, not ungenerous in victory, had given her composure for its purpose.
"You are the only person who could help me," she said very simply. "But it is such a long story, and I ought not to take up your time."
"I have plenty of time," replied Dormer with equal simplicity. "If you will sit down, and tell me what you can, I daresay I can fill in the gaps."
"I thought my marriage was the ... the 'vision splendid,'" began Horatia after a little, "I was mistaken; but there was still something remaining, only I was exacting and foolish, and refused to make the best of what I had ... At last I heard two miserable women speaking of the infidelity of my husband, and the name coupled with his was ... that of my greatest friend. There were proofs with which I need not trouble you ... I taxed him with it, but he denied it. I would not believe him. I told him I hated him and his child. It was then that Maurice was born. For many weeks I visited my hatred of my husband on the child. For a long time I would not let them bring my baby near me ... and I definitely refused to believe my husband, who still protested his innocence, or to have anything more to do with him. I"—her voice began to falter—"practically drove him from me to do the very thing of which I had falsely accused him.... I think I lost all faith in God, and I believe that I wished to die."
"It would be at that time," asked Dormer, to help her, "that Tristram and I came to see you?"
"Yes ... and that was somehow ... a turning point for me. During the cholera I was away with Maurice, and it was then that I began to be a little sorry. I think I meant to take Armand back into favour by degrees. But when I returned to Paris he had already left for Vendée. Soon afterwards I heard that the rising had proved a failure, and that he was in hiding. I followed as quickly as I could to our house in the country ... and it was there that the news was brought to me that he had been shot."