She stopped in her walk and faced him steadily.
'What! is it common gossip?' she asked. 'Does all the town chatter of what I, till a few days ago, was ignorant of? If so, then, alas! poor Delicia!'
Her eyes flashed suddenly.
'Tell me, is it possible that Lord Carlyon has so far forgotten himself as to make his attentions to La Marina open and manifest, thus allowing his wife to become an object for the pity and mockery of society?'
'Lady Carlyon,' replied Valdis, 'your friends sought to warn you long ago, but you would not listen. Your own nature, pure and lofty as it is, rejected what you deemed mere scandalous rumour. You resented with the noble confidence of a true wife the least word of suspicion against Lord Carlyon. When I ventured to hint that your confidence was misplaced, you dismissed me from your presence. I do not say you were wrong; you were right. The worthy wife of a worthy husband is bound to act as you did. But suppose the husband is not worthy, and the wife deceives herself as to his merits, it is for her own sake, for her honour and her self-respect that she should be persuaded to realise the fact and take such steps as may prevent her from occupying a false position. And now you know—'
'Now I know,' interrupted Delicia, with a vibrating passion in her voice, 'what is the use of it? What am I to do? What can I do? A woman is powerless in everything which relates to her husband's infidelity merely. I can show no bruises, no evidence of ill-treatment; then what is my complaint about? "Go home, silly woman," says the law, "and understand that if your husband chooses to have a new love every day, you cannot get separated from him, provided he is civil to you; man has licence which woman has not." And so on, and so on, with their eternal jargon! Paul Valdis, you can act emotions and look tragedies; but have you ever realised the depth or the terror of the dumb, dreadful dramas of a woman's broken heart? No! I don't think that even you, with all your fine, imaginative sympathy, can reach thus far. Do you know why I came away from home to-day and made straight for the sea,—the great, calm sea which I knew would have the gentleness to drown me if the pain became too bitter to bear? Nay, do not hold me!' For Valdis, struck by the complete breakdown of her reserve, and the brilliant wildness of her eyes, had unconsciously caught her arm. 'There is no danger, I assure you. I have not been given my faith in God quite vainly; and there is so much of God's thought in the beauty of ocean, that even to contemplate it has made me quieter and stronger; I shall not burden it with my drifting body yet! But do you know, can you guess why I came here and avoided meeting my husband to-day?'
Valdis shook his head, profoundly moved himself by her strong emotion.
'Lest I should kill him!' she said in a thrilling whisper. 'I was afraid of myself! I thought that if I had to see him enter my room with that confident smile of his, that easy manner, that grace of a supreme conceit swaying his every movement, while I all the time knew the fraud he was practising on me, the hypocrisy of his embrace, the lie of his kiss on my lips, I might, in the rush of remembering how I had loved him, murder him! It was possible; I knew it; I realised it; I confessed it before God as a sin; but despite of prayer and confession, the devil's thought remained!—I might do it in a moment of fury,—in a moment when wronged love clamoured for vengeance and would listen to no appeal,—and so I fled from temptation; but now I think the sea and air have absorbed all my evil desires, for they have gone!—and I shall try to be content now, content with solitude, till I die!'
Valdis was still silent. She leant over the pier, looking dreamily down into the darkly-heaving sea.
'Life at best is such a little thing!' she said, 'One wonders sometimes what it is all for! You see crowds of men and women rushing hither and thither, building this thing, destroying that, scheming, contriving, studying, fretting, working, courting, marrying, bringing up their children, and it is quite appalling to think that the same old road has been travelled over and over again since the very beginning! All through the Ptolemies and the Cæsars,—imagine! Exactly the same old monotonous course of human living and dying! What a waste it seems! Optimists say we have progressed; but then are we sure of that? And then one wants to know where the progression leads to; if we are going forward, what is the "forward?" Myself, I think the great charm of life is love; without love life is really almost valueless, and surely not worth the trouble of preserving. Don't you agree with me?'