“An alert lawyer, you mean,” interrupted Clara.
“Ah, you think so! He fascinates you.”
“He is an innocent man and a good man,” replied Mrs. Tarbot. “I like him well because he loved that child, because when the child died Mr. Pelham had a sense, not of rejoicing, but of sorrow. He is a good man, and when you strike him you do a fiendish deed. Give it up, Luke, give it up, and I will serve you to my dying day.”
“Give it up! But I married you for the sake of it.”
“Aye, I know that. Then you are inexorable?”
He made no reply. He was taller than his wife, and he was looking down at her. The expression in his eyes caused her to turn aside.
“I forgot for a moment,” she said at last slowly, “that I had united myself to a devil.”
“Think me one if you will,” replied Tarbot. “Upon my word, I would rather you thought me a devil than a saint—it is less mawkish. Bah! when I remember that I married you for better for worse, till death us do part, I can scarcely contain myself.”
Tarbot walked to the other end of the room. When he came back a new expression had come over Clara’s face. All sentiment had died out of it—it was hard and shrewd and businesslike as his own.
“Well,” he said, “you look better now. I have much to say. Sit down at this table and I will place myself opposite to you.”