She nodded and then laughed nervously.
"I don't know why I should be keeping you standing on the door-sill—like a model. If you've much to say you'd better say it sitting, Jim Horton."
He started and stared at her, but she had closed the door behind him and led the way with an assumption of carelessness to the chairs by the dead fire, as though aware of its symbolism.
"You know—the truth?"
She shrugged. "What Harry—what my husband—has told me, no more—no less."
He marveled at her ease, at the cruelty of her chosen phrases. And yet he could not cavil at them. It was clear that she meant that there were to be no further misunderstandings, that she was shifting the burden to his shoulders where it belonged. The sense of his culpability weighed upon him and he did not look at her, and so he missed the quick, anxious sensitive glances that searched his face for the truth in his heart. But he bent his head forward and stared into the ashes that had glowed so warmly a few nights ago.
"I have come to speak the truth," he began, his voice deep, resonant and trembling with his emotion. "A visit of confession and renunciation——"
"It's rather late, isn't it?" she said in a hard little voice that he scarcely recognized as her own. He knew that he deserved this of her and more, but it cut him none the less.
"I will tell you the truth," he went on firmly. "And then you shall judge for yourself. I owe it to you to tell the facts, but I owe it to myself, too."
She nodded and sat. And so, quietly, neglecting no detail, he told her of Harry, from the moment of their meeting on the battlefield until they had met outside in the Rue de Tavennes. He heard Moira gasp at the mention of Harry's cowardice, but he went on to the end, without pause.