She heard the scraping of ascending feet, and when she saw David stared at him, her eyes unblinking in stony expectancy. He came and stood before her, and she knew that at last he had guessed, and felt no fear, no resistance against the explanation that must come. He suddenly had lost all significance, was hardly a human organism, or if a human organism, one that had no relation to her. Neither spoke for some minutes. He was afraid, and she waited, knowing what he was going to say, wishing it was said, and the hampering persistence of his claim was ended.
At length he said tremulously:
"Susan, I saw you last night. What did you do it for? What am I to think?"
That he had had proof of her disloyalty relieved her. There would be less to say in this settling of accounts.
"Well," she answered, looking into his eyes. "You saw!"
He cried desperately, "I saw him kiss you. You let him. What did it mean?"
"Why do you ask? If you saw you know."
"I don't know. I want to know. Tell me, explain to me." He paused, and then cried with a pitiful note of pleading, "Tell me it wasn't so. Tell me I made a mistake."
He was willing, anxious, for her to lie. Against the evidence of his own senses he would have made himself believe her, drugged his pain with her falsehoods. What remnant of consideration she had vanished.
"You made no mistake," she answered. "It was as you saw."