"Am I? Don't you think it is the other way about? I confess I'm in no humour to listen to you just now. I've had about as much as I can stand to-night; and Mackay told me I must not upset myself about things." He laughed harshly—a sound that chilled her blood. "But no mere man could anticipate this!"
"Well, I never meant to say it, and I think you're horrid, you don't understand——"
"No; thank God, I don't understand—cowardice and desertion. Get up now and leave me alone, please. It's the greatest kindness you can do me; and yourself also, I imagine."
"Oh, don't say that. It's not true; and I'm not going to dream of leaving you. Won't you let me explain?"
"To-morrow, Evelyn, to-morrow," he answered wearily. "I shall be able to give you a fairer hearing by then; and I pray God I may have misjudged you. Now—go."
She bent down and kissed his hand; then rose and slipped silently back into her own room.
Theo Desmond lay motionless, like a man stunned. This third blow, dealt him in quick succession, left him broken in heart and spirit, as he had never been broken in all his days.
It is written that a man must be defeated in order to succeed; and in that moment Desmond bit the dust of the heart's most poignant tragedy and defeat—the shattering of faith in one who is very near to us. Nor was it the shattering of faith alone. The shock of his wife's unwitting revelation, coming when he stood supremely in need of her loyalty and tenderness, struck a mortal blow at his love for her; though in his present state he was not capable of recognising the truth. He only knew that, for the first time in his life, he felt unutterably alone—alone in a dimness which might deepen to permanent darkness; and that the wholesome vigorous realities of life seemed to have slipped for ever out of reach. He only knew that his wife would have turned her back upon him in his hour of extremity—openly disgracing herself and him—but for the intervention of Honor Meredith.