The young man sat up and tried to push his chair back. "I'm all right," he said thickly. "Where - where've you been?"
She came right into the room and pushed the door to behind her. It shut with a bang that made the man start.
"My God, you make me sick!" she said bitterly. "Where have I been? You know very well where I've been!
You're rotten, Mark! A rotten, drunken swine!"
"Oh, dry up!" he said angrily. He staggered to his feet and brushed past her to the door. She heard him presently in the scullery and guessed that he was dowsing his fuddled head in the sink. Her lip curled. She pulled off her hat and threw it on to a chair and went over to turn down the oil-lamp, which was smoking.
The man came back into the room. He looked ashamed and would not meet her eyes. "I'm sorry, Shirley," he muttered. "Don't know how it happened. I swear I didn't have more than a couple of drinks — well, three at the outside. I didn't even mean to go into the damned pub, but that farmer chap from what's the name of the place - ?"
"Oh, what does it matter?" she said impatiently. "You couldn't even keep off the drink for one night. You knew what you'd got to do, too."
"Oh, don't rag me, Shirley!" he said, a kind of weary exasperation in his voice. "All right, all right, I know I'm a swine. You needn't rub it in. Had to meet that fellow, hadn't I? I suppose you went instead."
She took the gun out of her pocket and laid it down and began to unbuckle her coat. "Yes, I went," she said briefly.
"Nothing in it, I suppose? I've always said it was a hoax. Only you would come down to this rotten hole and make me live in a filthy, draughty cottage all to go chasing red herrings…' He broke off, his eyes riveted on her coat. "Gosh, Shirley - what's that?" he asked hoarsely.