"Perhaps it might cost half a sovereign."
"Cynthia! It's impossible."
"Oh, please don't let's talk about it!" she said. "I made a mistake, that's all. I've made a good many since I married you; this was one more."
"I can't go," gasped Kent, fighting for his words. "I——If I cared for you less, I should! I can't go, because there's something I must tell you first. If ... but you won't. I want you to know ... I've a confession to make to you. It's over, but ... I've acted badly to you; I haven't the right to go to you. For God's sake, don't hate me more than you can help—I've been unfaithful."
Her first sensation was as if, without warning, he had dealt her a brutal blow in the face. There was the same staggered sense of fright, succeeded by the same sick wave of horror. Another woman had known him? Her brain did not leap for details instantaneously, as a man's would have leapt in the inverse situation; the name the woman bore, her position—what had such things to do with it? Curiosity to compare her with herself in looks would follow; now, while she stared at him with bloodless features, she was conscious of nothing but the pollution: another woman had known him. Kent stared back at her, appalled at her aspect; but he divined what she felt no more than he could have understood her emotions had she analysed them for him. "Another woman had known him" was the tumult in her soul; he believed her pride outraged that he had known another woman. The difference was enormous. The curiosity and thirst for vengeance apart, the wife's sensation was what the husband's would have been, had he heard of her own defilement. But that he himself appeared to her defiled he could not grasp; unworthy, contemptible, corrupt, he realised, but "defiled," no.
"Cynthia, forgive me!"
She swayed a little as his voice struck her agony.
"I'll try."
"You see why I couldn't go?"
"Yes," she said hoarsely.