"Honestly, Rachel, it was largely fascination—"
"But not primarily."
"No."
"Then let me hear the prime motive at last, for I am tired of trying to guess it!"
Steel stood before his wife as he had never stood before her yet, his white head bowed, his dark eyes lowered, hands clasped, shoulders bent, the suppliant and the penitent in one.
"I did it to punish you," he said. "I thought some one must—I felt I could have hanged you if I had spoken out what I had seen—and I—married you instead!"
His eyes were on the ground. When he raised them she was smiling through unshed tears. But she had spoken first.
"It was not a very terrible motive, after all," she had said; "at least, it has not been such a very terrible—punishment!"
"No; but that was because I did the very last thing I ever thought of doing."
"And that was?"