"It's not true!" he gasped. "It's not true!"
The woman never even raised her eyes. She went on carefully inspecting the filmy bit of lace in her hands.
"It is true," she replied. "Never mind how I discovered it. I know it. That is why she has gone abroad alone. I did not speak until I had to. I am a coward, but not enough of one to bear the thought of her alone in a foreign country with mind and emotions clouded. I may be cowardly enough to wish that I had never found it out,—I am not coward enough to keep silent any longer."
A torrent of words rushed to the man's lips, but he was too wise to make excuses. Yet there were excuses. Any fair-minded judge would have said so. But he knew better than to think that for one moment they would be excuses in the mind of this woman. Besides, the first man's excuse for the first sin has never been viewed with much respect under the modern civilization.
He felt her slowly rise to her feet, and when he raised his head to look at her—not yet fully realizing what had happened to him—all emotion seemed to have become so foreign to her face, that he felt as if she were already a stranger to him.
She took a last look round the room. Her eyes seemed to devour every detail.
"I shall find means to give you your freedom at once."
"You will actually leave me—go away?"
"Can we two remain together now?"
"But your children?"