"I beg your pardon in my turn," she said. "I can only promise you that I will never again reopen that wound—whatever it may be—and I won't even try to guess. I undertook not to try to probe your past, and I will keep my undertaking in the main; but where it impinges upon my own past I simply cannot! You say you were my first husband's close friend," added Rachel, looking her second husband more squarely than ever in the eyes. "Was that what brought you to my trial for his murder?"
He returned her look.
"It was."
"Was that what made you wish to marry me yourself?"
No answer, but his assurance coming back, as he stood looking at her under beetling eyebrows, over black arms folded across a snowy shirt. It was the wrong moment for the old Adam's return, for Rachel had reached the point upon which she most passionately desired enlightenment.
"I want to know," she cried, "and I insist on knowing, what first put it into your head or your heart to marry me—all but convicted—"
Steel held up his hand, glancing in apprehension towards the door.
"I have told you so often," he said, "and your glass tells you whenever you look into it. I sat within a few feet of you for the inside of a week!"
"But that is not true," she told him quietly; "trust a woman to know, if it were."
In the white glare of the electric light he seemed for once to change color slightly.