"Will you not be seated, Mrs. Belswin?"
She was foolish to betray her identity, but whether it was that her resolution failed her, or that her nerve gave way, or that she determined to forestall discovery, with an appealing cry she fell on her knees.
"Rupert!"
"God!"
He tore the shade off the lamp. The heavy, concentrated, yellow light spread through the room in clear waves of brilliance, and there on the floor, with wild, white face, with outstretched, appealing hands, with the agony of despair in her eyes, he saw his divorced wife.
"Rupert!"
Step by step he retreated before the kneeling figure, with startled eyes and dry lips, until he leant against the wall, and thrust out cruel hands to keep off this spectre of the past.
"You!"
"Yes. I--your wife!"
"My wife!"