Petrovitch spoke slowly and distinctly.
Litvinoff leaned forward in his chair and looked at him amazedly.
'By Heaven!' he said, leaning back with a sort of sigh, 'you seem to know everything.'
'I have made it my business to know.'
'Not quite everything in this case, though,' Litvinoff added, correcting himself, 'for I have no wife.'
Petrovitch's eyes flashed angrily.
'I was not speaking in the phrase of your London society. I did not suppose that you were going to commit an illegal act. I merely imagined that you had intended to commit a crime. I am not mistaken in supposing that you always led the woman in question to believe that you looked upon her as your wife?'
'You are not mistaken—you are right. I did contemplate a crime,' he said, walking over to the bookcase, and standing so that his face was not to be seen. 'I have no defence to offer; but at the time I first contemplated it I deceived myself with the idea that I had. But my wife left me. I did not leave her. I never could have left her; and if she had not left me that vile idea of marrying another woman would never have entered my head. However, that's all at an end now, I'm thankful to say, and I mean to find my wife'—there was no hesitation in his voice this time—'and legalise her position with bell, book, and candle, and any other rites that may seem to her desirable.'
'Regardless of principles?' said Petrovitch, with the faintest possible sneer.