Even when uttering his first sentence he had noticed that there had come over Flossy's face—which was thinner, if quite as pretty and youthful-looking as when he had last seen it—an expression of obstinacy which he had once well known and always dreaded. It had been Flossy's one poor weapon against her husband's superior sense and power of getting his own way, and sometimes it had vanquished him in that fair fight which is always being waged between the average husband and wife.
"You are right," she cried passionately; "I have not taught the children to deceive you! I have never come into this house until I felt sure that they were asleep and alone, though I've often wondered that they never woke up and knew that their own mother was there! But more than once, James, I've felt like going after that Society which looks after badly-treated children—for the last nurse you had for them was so cruel! If she hadn't left you soon I should have had to do something. I used to feel desperate when I saw her shake Baby in her pram; why, one day, in the Enclosure, a lady spoke to her about it, and threatened to tell her—her mistress——"
Flossy's voice sank to a shamed whisper. The tears were rolling down her cheeks; she was speaking in angry gasps, and what she said actually made James Tapster feel, what he knew full well he had no reason to feel, ashamed of himself.
"That is why"—she went on—"that is why I have, as you say, forced myself into your house, and why, too, I have now come here to ask you to forgive me—to take me back—just for the sake of the children."
Mr. Tapster's mind was one that travelled surely if slowly. He saw his chance and seized it.
"And why," he said impressively, "had that woman—the nurse, I mean—no mistress? Tell me that, Flossy. You should have thought of all that before you behaved as you did!"
"I didn't know—I didn't think——"
Mr. Tapster finished the sentence for her. "You didn't think," he observed impressively, "that I should ever find you out."
Then there came over him a morbid wish to discover—to learn from her own lips—why Flossy had done such a shameful and extraordinary thing as to be unfaithful to her marriage vow.
"Whatever made you behave so?" he asked in a low voice. "I wasn't unkind to you, was I? You had a nice, comfortable home, hadn't you?"