Lucy had covered her face with her hands; but now she lifted it and showed him as it might be the eyes of an Assessing Angel.
"You went through no fire at all. But you put me in the fire." But he continued as if she had said nothing material.
"I had made up my mind to be satisfied. I thought if I could see you exalted, proud of what you had, that would be enough. But you found him out; and then you found me out too ... and we never spoke of it. But there it was, Lucy, all the time; and there it is still, my dear—"
Her face was aflame, but her eyes clear and cold. "No," she said, "it's not there. There is nothing there at all. You are nothing to me but a thought of shame. I think I deserve all that you can say—but surely you have said enough to me now. I must leave you if you go on with this conversation. Nothing whatever is there—"
He laughed, not harshly, but comfortably, as a man does who is sure of himself. "Yes, there is something there still. I count on that. There is a common knowledge, unshared by any one but you and me. He would have it so. I was ready to tell him everything, but he wouldn't hear me. It was honourable of him. I admired him for it; but it left me sharing something with you."
She stared at him, as if he had insulted her in the street.
"What can you mean? How could he want to hear from you what he knew already from me?"
Urquhart went pale. Grey patches showed on his cheeks and spread like dry places in the sand.
"You told him?"
"Everything. Two nights before you went."