Fulvia had sat motionless under his appeal; but as he paused she rose with an impulsive gesture. "Oh, why do you torment me with questions?" she cried, half-sobbing. "I venture to counsel a delay, and you arraign me as though I stood at the day of judgment!"
"It IS our day of judgment," he retorted. "It is the day on which life confronts us with our own actions, and we must justify them or own ourselves deluded." He went up to her and caught her hands entreatingly. "Fulvia," he said, "I too have doubted, wavered—and if you will give me one honest reason that is worthy of us both—"
She broke from him to hide her weeping. "Reasons! reasons!" she stammered. "What does the heart know of reasons? I ask a favour—the first I ever asked of you—and you answer it by haggling with me for reasons!"
Something in her voice and gesture was like a lightning-flash over a dark landscape. In an instant he saw the pit at his feet.
"Some one has been with you. Those words were not yours," he cried.
She rallied instantly. "That is a pretext for not heeding them!" she returned.
The lightning glared again. He stepped close and faced her.
"The Duchess has been here," he said.
She dropped into a chair and hid her face from him. A wave of anger mounted from his heart, choking back his words and filling his brain with its fumes. But as it subsided he felt himself suddenly cool, firm, attempered. There could be no wavering, no self-questioning now.
"When did this happen?" he asked.