"Ye-yes. Well, no. I haven't seen him for ages, but I live in dread of seeing him every day. I know, sooner or later, he will come."
She paused. "I wonder if I really could tell you everything."
"Please do, or tell me as much as you care to. I'd like to help you if you would let me."
She went on in a low voice, rather suggestive, Wyndham thought, of the confessional: "I was engaged to him once—long ago—he forced me into it. It began when we were children. He always made me do everything he wanted. Then—he went away immediately after—for a year. When he came back—I don't know how it was—I suppose it was because he had been away so long—but I was stronger. He seemed to have lost his hold over me, and I—I broke it off."
She looked away from Wyndham as she spoke.
He wondered, "Is she acting all the time? If so, how admirably she does it! She must be a cleverer woman than I thought. But she isn't a clever woman. Therefore——" But Audrey went on before he could draw a conclusion.
"But I know some day he will come back and make it begin all over again, and I shall have no power. And the thought of it is horrible!"
There was no mistaking the passion in her voice this time. He said to himself, "This is nature," and he felt the same cold shiver of sympathy that sometimes ran through him at the performance of some splendid actress. But before he could presume to sympathise he must judge.
"Do you mind telling me one thing? Had you any graver reasons for breaking it off than what you have told me?"
"Yes. He drinks."