While her face was still covered, she felt Julia's arms about her, heard her disconcerted voice begging to be told. But when at last Marie looked up, with tears salt and bitter on her cheeks, it was to reply sombrely:
"There's nothing to tell."
"What has happened?" Julia begged.
Marie said slowly, twisting her hands: "I felt, when I came home, after a joy-year which he didn't want to give me the remotest chance of sharing, that—that I could never forgive him for all those years of losing my health and looks, those years of work and worry and child-bearing; those years of quarrelling and grudging; those dead, drab, ugly, ordinary married years. And so...."
"And so, my dear?"
"And so I have not forgiven him. He killed the love in me. There is no more for him."
"If there is no more," said Julia, with a sudden instinct, "why do you cry, my dear? And why does this hurt you so?"
"To—to see you so happy," Marie whispered up to her, "to see you and Desmond as Osborn and I once were."
"And as you want to be again, my dear, if you only knew it."
"It's too late for that."