"Yes. When you paid Pico the fifty thousand, I felt quite sure that a part of it must have come from the Las Cruces. I am as guilty as you are."
Before she could prevent, Elijah had snatched her hand from his shoulder and was pressing it to his lips. Helen wrenched her hand from his lips. As if drawn by her resisting hand he rose to his feet, his burning eyes resting on hers. In vain she tried to withdraw her hand from his fierce clasp.
"Don't leave me, Helen, don't leave me!" With wide open arms he sprang toward her.
With hardly a perceptible motion, she was beyond the reach of his outstretched hands. She had no palliating knowledge of his inner thoughts, no knowledge of the malevolent suggestions of Mrs. MacGregor, no knowledge of the scene in Elijah's house, where the lamplight fell on a tear-stained baby face, on blistered sheets with hopeless figures, upon renunciation, as Elijah closed the door and deliberately put his wife from him.
Helen stood erect, composed, her eyes filled with loathing, contempt, but not for Elijah alone. This was the hardest to bear. What had she said, what had she done to bring this horrible thing upon herself?
Elijah slowly grasped the meaning of Helen's eyes. She had not spoken. There was no need that she should speak.
"No! no! no! Helen, not that, not that; you don't understand."
"Stop! I won't listen. Not to a word."
"You will! You must!" There was no passion now either in words or looks, only a set determination to be heard.
Try as she would, Helen could not stop the explanation he offered, the palliation of his sins past and to come. Even as he had said, she was compelled to listen, but there was no softening of her eyes, no change in the set, hard face.