“But I was not sure. Last night something compelled me to go with you to that dreadful meeting—perhaps it was Fate. All my life the idea of physical suffering has been repugnant to me. To see an animal in pain was torture. You are surprised at this, John, but you know very little of me. One of the strictest rules of the training of women of our class is that to show the slightest sign of one’s feeling is bad form. We are taught to batten down our real thoughts, and only let the world see what it will find agreeable. And therefore we are all frauds.”
She turned her face towards him and to his amazement there were tears in her eyes.
“Of course I had read of the Congo, and what had gone on there, but it never made much impression on my mind—I suppose because I did not really understand. But as I listened to those who spoke last night, the whole ghastly tragedy was revealed to me, but still I did not connect you with the monsters who were responsible for it.”
She broke off and gave a little sob.
“There was that missionary who told of the baby whose hands had been chopped off, and for one mad moment I thought of what I should have suffered if it had been my own child. Then came the succession of horrors, of brutality, of torturings, of murder, of the deliberate mutilations, and still I did not remember. I could only think of the millions who are in the Congo that even at the present moment some fresh outrage might be going on.”
She covered her face with her hands, and her body trembled slightly. Gaunt stared at her in amazement, for this was a humor of which he had not thought her capable. What was she going to say to him? Again fear held him in its grip.
“And then you rose from your seat. Like a flash it was revealed to me that you—that my husband was one of the criminals, who had coined gold by this devilish torturing of the natives.”
“Mildred, you do not know what you are saying,” he cried passionately.
“As in a dream I listened to you, and was amazed that you dared face the people and deliberately own to them that you were a murderer,” she said vehemently.
“You are mad,” he said hoarsely.