There were tears of agony in her voice. She kept clasping and unclasping her hands.
"Oh! I suppose it is all my fault," she said brokenly—"all my fault. I don't think ungenerous things of others. I have been too trusting—too confiding. Why should people thing such things? I only wanted a good friend, a companion."
He still stood by her, looking at her keenly, and the bitterness in his voice did not die away. "Friends! Oh yes, I know! You wanted someone to pet you, to pamper you. What you wanted was someone to satisfy all your vanities—your yearning for devotion, for adulation, for sense of power. I know! You wanted all the joys and none of the risks. That sums up the whole thing in a nutshell. There are lots of women like you. They drive men mad—make drunkards, gamblers, swindlers of them. I have seen it often enough. I have seen men fall out and lose themselves among the army of crooks that throng the second-rate shows. But I won't let you drive me mad."
The bitterness in his voice was terrible. His words seemed to scourge her, to lash her like a whip. She stared at him in helpless amazement and misery. He had paused in his rapid torrent of speech, and as he saw her distress he seemed to be a little touched.
"Peggy!" he said, and once more the note of passion came into his voice, while the anger died out of it—"Peggy! I mean you to be mine. There will be a crash soon—that is certain. Admaston will take notice of what everybody is saying about us. He will come out of his political shell, wake up, do things, put an end to it at once and for ever!"
"Oh, my God! What have I done!" the girl cried.
"Done! What have you done to deserve your husband's neglect? Why, he doesn't even know that you exist. His heart beats by Act of Parliament. He'd a thousand times rather address a village meeting than spend an hour in your company. Are you to pass your youth in the company of——"
"Stop! stop!" she cried. "Say what you like about me—scold me if you like, but say nothing against him. You do not know my husband. We are neither of us fit to mention his name. He is a big man, and he loves me."
"But, Peggy, you won't say that you love him?" Collingwood said, with a curious note of perplexity in his voice. The situation, tragic as it was, got a little bit beyond him.
"Love him?" she answered. "I don't know. I have had no chance to love anyone the way you regard love."