He sat still, without denying it.
"You wanted to die!" she repeated, accusing him. "You wanted to kill yourself! But why? Osbert, you have got to tell me why."
"You know why well enough. To undo the harm I have done you. To set you free."
"Then," she pursued swiftly, "I suppose I am right in my other suspicion, too? You don't want me here! You married me, not because you loved me or wanted me, but to be revenged upon mother through me.... And now that you find you are too soft-hearted—or that you have ceased to think that I deserve punishment—you want to get rid of me! But surely there are other ways to do that! You needn't kill yourself! If you don't want me, I can go?... Why did you make such a point of my coming back if—if——"
He made a sound of speechless scorn; but he had turned pale. Clearly this view of the question took him aback. "Of course you know that you are talking nonsense," he said at last.
She was now too much roused to feel nervous. "You call it nonsense," said she, "but if those are your feelings——"
"My feelings!" he broke in. "You know it's not a question of that at all, but of your happiness. But if my feelings must be dragged in—if you will have it so—why, use your own sense for a moment! Look at yourself and then look at me! How can any future together be possible? Think of how I have treated you, and how you have requited me! You see the hopelessness of it all.... Child, you made your first mistake yesterday. You should have let me die quietly. It didn't hurt a bit, and I was not loath. I was slipping away so easily, it seemed far less trouble to go on than to come back. Nothing but your voice could have compelled me. And, if you had let me go, what a future for you! A few weeks bother, perhaps—and perhaps even a little regret. Then freedom. You would have been set at liberty, as you once told me you longed to be! And clean, Virginia, as you also wished! You would have been rich, you might have sent for Pansy, for Tony, for mother! Nothing of mine would have remained but the name you bear, and that you would have changed so soon! And you would have thought kindly of me in the end, because the last thing I did was to bring your lover back to you."
She drew herself up and gazed upon him with scarlet face and eyes brimming with indignant tears. "My lover! What have I done that you should speak so to me? You know very well that I have no lover," she said.
He could see that she was deeply wounded. "I don't understand you a bit," she cried, pushing all her work to the ground, and leaning her forehead on her hands. "When I came back, you seemed so glad—really glad. I hoped ... we might be friends. But what could I do? You didn't like me even to take your hand. If you would really rather have died, of course I am sorry I interfered. I didn't stop to think. It seemed too important, there was only time to act.... I just felt that I—I couldn't let you die like that!" her voice sank away till the concluding words were half inaudible.
"But why not?" he urged, "why could you not? That is the whole point, don't you see?"