"You mean to say that you don't think I was wicked when I . . . when I trepanned is what mother calls it? . . ."
He said loudly:
"No! . . . You had been let in for it by some brute. I have always held that a woman who has been let down by one man has the right—has the duty for the sake of her child—to let down a man. It becomes woman against man: against one man. I happened to be that one man: it was the will of God. But you were within your rights. I will never go back on that. Nothing will make me, ever!"
She said:
"And the others! And Perowne. . . . I know you'll say that anyone is justified in doing anything as long as they are open enough about it. . . . But it killed your mother. Do you disapprove of my having killed your mother? Or you consider that I have corrupted the child. . . ."
Tietjens said:
"I don't. . . . I want to speak to you about that."
She exclaimed:
"You don't. . . ."
He said calmly: