She took one of his hands in hers.
"Philip," she said, "you must not think hardly of me. You must not think of me as simply afflicted with the usual woman's curiosity. I am not curious at all. I would rather not know. But remember that for nearly twenty years you passed out of my life. You have come back again wonderfully altered. You do not wish to keep the story of those years for ever a sort of Bluebeards chamber in our lives?"
"Not I," he answered. "I would have you do as I have done, rip them out page and chapter, annihilate them utterly. What have they to do with the life before us? To you they would seem evil enough, to me they are thronged with horrible memories, with memories which, could I take them with me, would poison heaven itself. So let us blot them out for ever. Come to me, Catherine, and help me to forget."
She looked at him with strained eyes.
"Philip," she said, "I must understand you. I must understand what has made you the man you are."
"Fifteen years in hell has done it," he answered, fiercely. "Not even my memory shall ever take me back."
"If I marry you," she said, "remember that I marry your past as well as your future. And there are things—which need explanation."
"Well?"
"You have been married."
"She is dead."