She turned to her husband.
'He says he believes the man you ask about was once engaged in a large coal-mining deal in the West.'
'Yes,' said the heavy man eagerly, leaning forward again to listen to what he could not understand, but with as keen attention as though he comprehended fully.
'Wait and I will ask him more.'
Again she turned to the other.
'But you, you also have bought unworthy things at fearful cost?'
'What? In God’s name, what have I bought? I who renounced everything, who have nothing left in this world but the memory of your face and the certainty of death?'
'You bought for yourself the approval of what you may choose to call your conscience,' she said in the same almost monotonous, even voice. 'You bought freedom from the world’s censure, freedom from what the world would have said had you married me.'
He flung out a trembling hand. I thought it would have betrayed him.
'That! Will you bring up that old mad folly of yours? Would you hope to persuade me it was not my duty to renounce you? They told me I could not possibly get well. You see for yourself. You see now how I am changed. I shall last now, perhaps, six months. You had nothing. I had nothing. What would have become of you, not to speak of all the horror? It was clearly my duty. I leave it to any man.'