"Oh, Mother of God," she whispered, "have mercy! Can you not see, do you not know? I am not as you left me."
"Yes, my wife, you are just the same; not an hour older. I am glad that you have come to me. But how they will envy Pretty Pierre!"
"Envy—Pretty-Pierre," she repeated, in distress; "are you Pretty Pierre?
Ah, I might have known, I might have known!"
"Yes, and so! Is not Pretty Pierre as good a name as Francois Rives?
Is it not as good as Shon McGann?"
"Oh, I see it all, I see it all now!" she said mournfully. "It was with you he quarrelled, and about me. He would not tell me what it was. You know, then, that I am—that I am married—to him?"
"Quite. I know all that; but it is no marriage." He rose to his feet slowly, dropping the cigarette from his lips as he did so. "Yes," he continued, "and I know that you prefer Shon McGann to Pretty Pierre."
She spread out her hands appealingly.
"But you are my wife, not his. Listen: do you know what I shall do?
I will tell you in two hours. It is now eight o'clock. At ten o'clock
Shon McGann will meet me at the Saints' Repose. Then you shall know….
Ah, it is a pity! Shon was my good friend, but this spoils all that.
Wine—it has danger; cards—there is peril in that sport; women—they
make trouble most of all."
"O God," she piteously said, "what did I do? There was no sin in me. I was your faithful wife, though you were cruel to me. You left me, cheated me, brought this upon me. It is you that has done this wickedness, not I." She buried her face in her hands, falling on her knees beside the chair.
He bent above her: "You loved the young avocat better, eight years ago."