Both men, following their thought, turned to glance at her. She stood tense, deathly pale, looking from one to the other, evidently in an atrocious dilemma, unable to utter a word.
Tremaine swung round again to his rival, sneered scornfully.
“What kind of fool do you take me for? Do you expect me to give up my wife and child, my home—give up my whole existence and pretend to be someone else—just to oblige you? You must be mad!—I’ve come back and here I am—come to stay,” he ended, doggedly, “to pick up my life again!”
There was a shade of sympathy in Satterthwaite’s eyes as he contemplated him.
“But can’t you see that it’s impossible to pick it up again where you left off?” he said. “Can’t you see that as Harry Tremaine you can never be happy again? You can’t get away from what has happened—it will always be there, haunting you—and you’ll be reminded of it—pointed at. The other women will make your wife’s life a hell in the thousand little subtle ways they have. And besides, what have you been doing for the past two years? You’ve been living somewhere—as somebody. That existence will always be waiting in the background—ready to spring out on you—and you can’t guard against it, for you don’t even know what it was!”
The young woman bent forward.
“Can’t you remember, Harry?—Can’t you think where you’ve been—what you’ve been doing?” she asked, anxiously. “Oh!” she added, with a little despairing gesture, “I only want to do what is right—what is best for all of us!”
Tremaine shook his head.
“I haven’t the remotest idea of where I was at lunchtime to-day!” he said. “I may have come straight out of hospital, for all I know.”
Satterthwaite nodded, humouring him.