Again a silence fell between them; and then a sudden impulse drove Anstice into speech.
"Mrs. Cheniston," he said, very quietly, "may I tell you something else—something I have long wanted you to know?"
Startled, she assented; and he continued slowly.
"You remember that night—the night before your wedding day"—he saw her wince, and went on more quickly—"the night, I mean, when Cherry Carstairs set herself on fire and you came for me to my house——"
"Yes." Her eyes were sad. "I remember. I don't think I shall ever be able to forget that night."
"Ah, don't say that!" His voice was eager. "Mrs. Cheniston, don't, please, believe I gave in without a struggle. I didn't. God knows I fought the horrible thing—for your sake, because you had been good enough, kind enough—to ask me to give up trying that way out. I did try. Oh, I know you can hardly believe me—you who saw me in the very hour of my failure—but it's true. Although I gave in at the last, beaten by the twin enemies of bodily pain and mental suffering——"
"You were—in pain—that day?"
"Yes. I had endured torture—oh, I don't want to excuse myself, but please understand I was really ill, really suffering, and morphia, as you know, does bring a blessed relief. And I was wretched, too—it seemed to me that life was over for me that day——"
He stopped short, biting his lips at his self-betrayal; but Iris' grey eyes did not turn away from his face.
"And so, thinking I could endure no more agony of body and mind, I had recourse to the one relief I knew; but before God, if I had known that you would be a witness to my failure——"