‘What have I done?’ he echoed—’ what have I done, dear?’
‘Done!’ she flashed at him, drawing her hands away from her streaming eyes, and throwing them passionately apart ‘Oh, Paul, we have all loved you so, and honoured you so, and now——’
She cast herself into an arm-chair with a reckless abandonment, and cried bitterly. The chill hand at Paul’s heart grew icy, but even yet he did not recognise his fear.
‘For mercy’s sake, Bill, tell me!’
She flashed to her feet in a second, and looked at him from head to foot with a burning scorn.
‘Never call me by that name again,’ she said, through her clenched white teeth. ‘You ask me what you have done? You have ruined Madge’s life and broken her heart, and mine,’ she cried, striking her clenched hand upon her breast—‘and mine!’
She went raging up and down the room like a lovely fury, her hair disordered, her eyes flashing, and her cheeks new-crimsoned with anger.
‘Tell me—tell me,’ he besought her, ‘what has happened.’
‘This has happened,’ she answered, with a sudden tense quiet: ‘your wife has been here—your wife, an overdressed, painted French trull, so drunk that she could barely stand.’
‘Good God!’ said Paul. He laid his hand upon a bookshelf, and stood swaying there as if he were about to fall. ‘What brought her here?’ he gasped.