"I knew you'd be horribly sick about it and hate me!"
"I don't hate you. But I want to kill him! He took you to that damnable place and—" He bit his lip and swallowed. "How long was that before I met you at Hendon? Three days—and our day of meeting—the meeting I thanked God for!—was July 18th. This is October—the 14th—to be particular. You must know what I'm driving at. Is there—any danger——"
She said in a level voice, looking at him steadily:
"I have deserved it—but I think God is going to be kinder to me than to—punish me in that way." Her eyes flickered and fell from his. "It was because—I was so awfully afraid at first that I made up my mind to marry you. And now—and now you know the very worst of me."
"Hardly the worst." He drew breath roughly, and the cloud upon his forehead lightened a little. "We'd have been man and wife before I flew for France—if you'd let me have my way. Why didn't you?"
"I—Oh!—It seemed so mean.... A kind of child-stealing. You were so unsuspecting, and so generous, and so clean!" She bit her lips, and the tears welled over her underlids.... "You shamed me into being straight with you. I'd loved you from the beginning. But it was as though my love had left off crawling and grown a pair of wings."
"Answer me straight." He turned so as to face her. "Did you ever love that German?"
"To my shame be it spoken—never for an instant! After that night at the Upas I hated him unspeakably. Only when I thought he was dead, I began to let up a little on the hate."
He looked at his hands and unknotted them and knotted them, and said suddenly:
"You may be interested to know that he is not dead, but very much the other thing. He is scouting and spotting for von Kluck's gunners on their south and west Fronts, and sometimes bombing positions he has skried out—and doing it all superbly, damn him! He has been degraded to the rank of a Supernumerary Flying officer for some breach of duty that got to the Kaiser. And he has evidently made his mind up to make good in this War. They pick him for all the dangerous missions. He seems unkillable—and we've tried our hardest. And wherever he goes—until now I've kept this from you—he takes—the Saxhams' son!"