“It’s not impossible.”
Hugh rose and began pacing backwards and forwards. Lancaster’s eyes rested on him thoughtfully. The man had altered during the last few weeks—altered incredibly. He was a stone lighter to start with, and his blond, clear-cut face had the worn look born of mental conflict. His eyes were red-rimmed as though from insufficient sleep.
“It’s not impossible.” Hugh paused in his restless pacing to and fro. “I love her because I can’t help myself. I hate her because I ought never to have married her—never made a woman of her type the mother of my child.”
“All mothers are sacred,” suggested the doctor quietly.
Hugh seemed not to hear him.
“How long is this pretence to go on, Lancaster?” he demanded irritably.
“What pretence?”
“This pretence that nothing is changed—nothing altered—between my wife and myself?”
“For ever, I hope. So that, after all, there will have been no pretence.”
But the appeal of the speech was ineffectual. Hugh looked at the other man unmoved.