"How long have you been living in this way?" he asked, turning to her again.
"You have no right to question me."
"What!—no right? Then who has a right I should like to know?"
He did not speak harshly; his look expressed sincere astonishment.
"I don't acknowledge," said Lilian, with quivering voice, "that that ceremony made me your wife."
"What do you mean? It was a legal marriage. Who has said anything against it?"
"You know very well that you did me a great wrong. The marriage was nothing but a form of words."
"On whose part? Certainly not on mine. I meant everything I said and promised. It's true I hadn't been living in the right way; but that was all done with. If nothing had happened, I should have begun a respectable life. I had made up my mind to do so. I shouldn't have deceived you in anything."
"Whether that's true or not, I don't know. I was deceived, and cruelly. You did me an injury you could never have made good."
Northway drew in his cheeks, and stared at her persistently. He had begun to examine the details of her costume—her pretty hat, her gloves, the fur about her neck. In face she was not greatly changed from what he had known, but her voice and accent were new to him—more refined, more mature, and he could not yet overcome the sense of strangeness. He felt as though he were behaving with audacity; it was necessary to remind himself again and again that this was no other than Lilian Allen—nay, Lilian Northway; whose hand he had held, whose lips he had kissed.