“If you had tried to be faithful to me it would have been more to the purpose,” he interrupted, angrily. “I’ve been faithful to you and you have spoiled my life—both our lives . . .” Then after a pause the unconquerable preoccupation of self came out, and he raised his voice to ask resentfully, “And, pray, for how long have you been making a fool of me?”
She seemed horribly shocked by that question. He did not wait for an answer, but went on moving about all the time; now and then coming up to her, then wandering off restlessly to the other end of the room.
“I want to know. Everybody knows, I suppose, but myself—and that’s your honesty!”
“I have told you there is nothing to know,” she said, speaking unsteadily as if in pain. “Nothing of what you suppose. You don’t understand me. This letter is the beginning—and the end.”
“The end—this thing has no end,” he clamoured, unexpectedly. “Can’t you understand that? I can . . . The beginning . . .”
He stopped and looked into her eyes with concentrated intensity, with a desire to see, to penetrate, to understand, that made him positively hold his breath till he gasped.
“By Heavens!” he said, standing perfectly still in a peering attitude and within less than a foot from her.
“By Heavens!” he repeated, slowly, and in a tone whose involuntary strangeness was a complete mystery to himself. “By Heavens—I could believe you—I could believe anything—now!”
He turned short on his heel and began to walk up and down the room with an air of having disburdened himself of the final pronouncement of his life—of having said something on which he would not go back, even if he could. She remained as if rooted to the carpet. Her eyes followed the restless movements of the man, who avoided looking at her. Her wide stare clung to him, inquiring, wondering and doubtful.
“But the fellow was forever sticking in here,” he burst out, distractedly. “He made love to you, I suppose—and, and . . .” He lowered his voice. “And—you let him.”