"Or before."
Josephine asked the same question in a different manner when Wingate entered her little sitting room a few hours later.
"They are obstinate?" she enquired curiously.
He sipped the tea which she had handed to him.
"Very," he admitted, "yet, after all, why not? If we succeed, it is, at any rate, the end of their private fortunes, of Phipps' ambitions and your husband's dreams of wealth."
"So much the better," she declared sadly. "More money with Henry has only meant a greater eagerness to get rid of it."
A companionship which had no need of words seemed to have sprung up between them. They sat together for some minutes without speech, minutes during which the deep silence which reigned throughout the house seemed curiously accentuated. Josephine shivered.
"I shall never know what happiness is," she declared, "until I have left this house—never to return!"
"That will not be long," he reminded her gravely.
She placed her hand on his.