“There’s no excuse for either of you,” he said. “You both knew me.”
“Yes, and I knew you wouldn’t help me, for I asked you, and you refused.”
“I have never refused to help you. I offered to pay your bills.”
“You refused to give me money for myself. You wanted to treat me like a child. You showed that you distrusted me. Well, who is to blame, then, if I showed that I was not to be trusted? I was only treating you as you evidently expected me to treat you, wasn’t I?”
Her husband would not look at her. He was puzzled, sick at heart with mistrust much deeper than any he had betrayed to her. Was this all that he had to learn, that these two had combined together to rob him of his picture? That was the question which was agitating him, and to which he dared not as yet seek an answer.
The horrible secret which they had kept from him, this theft by which his own wife had, in conjunction with another man, sought to revenge herself upon him and to rob him at the same time, was such an unexpected revelation to the loyal-hearted and generous man, that on learning it he seemed to have stepped into a new world, where everything round him wore a fresh aspect, and where those nearest and dearest to him were transformed into shapes scarcely human.
He heard her lame and audacious attempt at defence, and waved his hand as if to ward off a blow.
“I can’t argue with you,” he said. “The whole thing is too shocking, too humiliating to us both, to us all.”
“Very well. I don’t ask you to forgive me. You’ve never understood me. I was never a suitable wife for you, and we can’t do each other justice,” said Lady Sarah. “However, we need not trouble one another any longer. I’ll get back your snuff-boxes if I can.”
“No, no. I don’t want them back. I don’t want ever to see again anything to remind me of this terrible day.”