‘Wouldn’t any woman think so?’
‘I hope not. I believe there are some women who don’t rush naturally to a base supposition.’
‘Did I?’ Nancy exclaimed, with a vehement passion that made her breast heave. ‘Didn’t I give you time enough—believe in you until I could believe no longer?’
The note of her thrilling voice went to Tarrant’s heart, and his head drooped.
‘That may be true,’ he said gravely. ‘But go on with your explanation. This woman came to you, and told you what she had discovered?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you allowed her to think you unmarried?’
‘What choice had I? How was my child to be brought up if I lost everything?’
‘Good God, Nancy! Did you imagine I should leave you to starve?’
His emotion, his utterance of her name, caused her to examine him with a kind of wonder.