"In this rather disappointing manner the Mystery of the Author's Wife leaves the select company of The Man in the Iron Mask, Jack the Ripper, Shakespeare, The Lady and the Tiger and other insolubles, to rank for ever with The Mango Tree, Fiona Macleod, The Englishwoman, and other mysteries which stupidly got solved."
Her eyes somehow deciphered the main points, and then she sat looking at the thin slip, seeing nothing.
"Practically unknown," suddenly came to her ears; "considering that Wandering Stars sold close upon six thousand!"
Then she heard herself speaking. "It's only a rag, not one of the real evening papers." She dared not say what she had got to say. She dared not face the storm. Hate, now, that was what ruled in her chaotic brain, hate and loathing for that treacherous, mean, little Mr. Alison. She knew she always had despised him, now—but he had been so kind.... Why had she trusted a weak man like him? Why had she ever written—married—been born—anything? Oh, what would happen now?
Her husband got up suddenly. That broke her tortured reverie, broke her inaction.
"Well, I shall write at once," he stormed. "Let's have the filthy thing."
She rose weakly to her feet and held it out to him. "What will you say?" she asked, still feebly trying to gain time, like men faced by a rope that they cannot possibly avoid.
"Say?" he repeated scornfully. "Tell them what they are and contradict the whole thing as a lie."
She almost staggered and caught hold of his arm. "No," she said. "Listen. You—you mustn't."
"Mustn't?" He looked curiously at her.