"I tried," he said feebly. "God knows I tried."
"You don't mean you deceived me?" Her voice was hardening.
"No." A queer kind of faintness was coming over him. "I don't mean that. You never asked me and ... and I never told you."
"But you knew I took it for granted that you were not married."
The order and precision of her speech began to frighten him. He could give no answer.
"You knew that." Her voice was hurting him terribly.
"I don't say I didn't," he said. He had a sick feeling that he was already in the jaws of a trap. God in heaven, what madness had lured him to tell her when he had no need to do so!
"Then you deceived me." The voice was pitiless.
He looked at her with scared eyes.
"Don't say that," he said.