“That is all I have to say,” she went on, in the silence closing round her. “But I wanted to say it to you first before repeating it to strangers.”
Then, suddenly, amid that deepening stillness, she felt that she must get away, must escape, and she hurried towards the door.
“Ursula!” said Gerard’s voice behind her, quite gently.
She turned; he had lifted his eyes, and his steadfast gaze met hers.
“Have you really nothing to say?” he continued. “No explanation? No extenuation of such conduct? No excuse?”
She drew herself up. “What would be the use of all that?” she answered, coldly. “Who listens to a criminal’s perversions? I have told you now, and you know.”
“I knew before,” he said.
When the words had struck her ear, an instant of expectation intervened. Then she caught at the wall beside her, saw him, as she did so, check a futile impulse to spring forward, and once more stood outwardly calm.
“I learned the news some weeks ago,” he continued. “On the night before the battle, as it happened. I got a letter from—some one who knew.”
“From Hephzibah,” said Ursula. “But then—when you came back—why—”