She stopped him with a movement of her head.
"Yes, I know," she said. "You took it out because it has haunted you and tempted you. You could not withstand it. It is in your blood."
He had known her through all his life as a patient creature, whose very pains had bent themselves and held themselves in check, lest they should seem for an hour to stand in the way of the end to be accomplished. That she had, even in the deepest secrecy, rebelled against fate, he had never dreamed.
She came to the table and struck the model aside with one angry blow.
"Shall I tell you the truth?" she cried, panting. "I have never believed in it for an hour—not for one hour!"
He could only stammer out a few halting words.
"This is all new to me," he said. "I did not know——"
"No, you did not know," she answered. "How should you, when I lived my whole life to hide it? I have been stronger than you thought. I bore with him, as I should have borne with him if he had been maimed or blind—or worse than that. I did not hurt him—he had hurt enough. I knew what the end would be. He would have been a happy man and I a happy woman, if it had not been for that, and there it is again. I tell you," passionately, "there is a curse on it!"
"And you think," he said, "that it has fallen upon me?"
She burst into wild tears.