"Extra speshul! Extra speshul! All about the war! War declared! Extra speshul!"
"War! That will separate many," she added. "It will separate Rudyard and me.... No, no, there will be no more scandal.... But it is the way of escape—the war."
"The way of escape for us all, perhaps," he answered, with a light of determination in his eyes. "Good-bye," he added, after a slight pause. "There is nothing more to say."
He turned to go, but he did not hold out his hand, nor even look at her.
"Tell me," she said, in a strange, cold tone, "tell me, did Adrian Fellowes—did he protect me? Did he stand up for me? Did he defend me?"
"He was concerned only for himself," Ian answered, hesitatingly.
Her face hardened. Pitiful, haggard lines had come into it in the last half-hour, and they deepened still more.
"He did not say one word to put me right?"
Ian shook his head in negation. "What did you expect?" he said.
She sank into a chair, and a strange cruelty came into her eyes, something so hard that it looked grotesque in the beautiful setting of her pain-worn, exquisite face.