“You are very sceptical,” he said, still looking down at her.
She did not return his glance. “I think I have been made sceptical,” she said.
As she spoke the image of Chilcote shot through his mind. Chilcote, irritable, vicious, unstable, and a quick compassion for this woman so inevitably shackled to him followed it.
Eve, unconscious of what was passing in his mind, went on with her subject.
“When we were married,” she said, gently, “I had such a great interest in things, such a great belief in life. I had lived in politics, and I was marrying one of the coming men—everybody said you were one of the coming men—I scarcely felt there was anything left to ask for. You didn't make very ardent love,” she smiled, “but I think I had forgotten about love. I wanted nothing so much as to be like Lady Sarah—married to a great man.” She paused, then went on more hurriedly: “For a while things went right; then slowly things, went wrong. You got your—your nerves.”
Loder changed his position with something of abruptness.
She misconstrued the action.
“Please don't think I want to be disagreeable,” she said, hastily. “I don't. I'm only trying to make you understand why—why I lost heart.”
“I think I know,” Loder's voice broke in involuntarily. “Things got worse—then still worse. You found interference useless. At last you ceased to have a husband.”
“Until a week ago.” She glanced up quickly. Absorbed in her own feelings, she had seen nothing extraordinary in his words.