She coloured hotly, and threw back her head.
'And if he did, it was no one's fault!—neither his nor mine. He wasn't a bad fellow!—and he wanted some one to look after his children.'
'Naturally. Quite content also to look after mine!' said Fenwick, with a laugh which startled her—resuming his agitated walk, a curious expression of satisfaction, triumph even, on his dark face. 'So you found yourself in a false position?'
He stopped to look at her, and his smile hurt her sorely. But she had made up her mind to a long patience, and she struggled on.
'It was partly that made me come home—that, and other things.'
'What other things?'
'Things—I saw—in some of the papers about you,' she said, with difficulty.
'What—that I was a flat failure?—a quarrelsome ass, and that kind of thing? You began to pity me?'
'Oh, John, don't talk to me like that?' She held out her hands to him in appealing misery. 'I was sorry, I tell you!—I saw how I'd behaved to you. I thought if you hadn't been getting on, perhaps it was my fault. It upset me altogether!'
But he didn't relent. He stood still—fiercely interrogative—his hands in his pockets, on the other side of the table.