“Not bad news—for us?” she repeated quiveringly.
“That depends upon how you choose to regard it,” he replied. “Ann”—the ice broke up and he came to the point with a suddenness that was almost brutal—“why haven’t you been straight with me?”
“Straight with you?” she repeated wonderingly. “But I have been straight with you.”
“What a woman would call straight, I suppose!” he flung back. “Which means concealing everything that you think won’t be found out.”
The indignant colour rushed up into her face, then receded, leaving it deadly pale.
“But I have nothing to conceal,” she answered. “Eliot—I don’t understand—”
“Don’t you?” lie said, and the measureless contempt in his voice stung like the lash of a whip. “Think back a bit! Is there nothing you’ve kept from me which I ought to have known—nothing which makes the love you professed only last night no more than a sham?”
For a moment Ann gazed at him in speechless silence. Then a low, passionate denial left her lips.
“Nothing!” she said.
Eliot took two strides towards her, and, gripping her by the shoulders, dragged her closer to the window so that the remorseless sunlight poured down on to her face.