"Sure!" she said, laughing hysterically. "I know his voice so well. There was a green plant between us——"
"Wait," said Rackham. "There's somebody coming. We'll go down. Damn! there are people everywhere—! Get a shawl, and we'll go out into the street."
Julia resisted him.
"Why are you dragging me away?" she rebelled. "You can't keep me quiet. Think how I've been treated! I could scream it to all the world!"
A woman could not have silenced her, but her emotional nature yielded finally to the rough coaxing of a man. He almost swung her downstairs into the draughty passage and, raiding the ladies' cloakroom, snatched up the first wrap that lay to his hand.
A chill wind blew up the steps, but there was still a persistent crew of gazers loitering in the street below. Rackham led her past, and they strolled a little way into the darkness, lighted at intervals by a twinkling lamp. There was no danger there of her making scenes.
"Now," he said. "Now, Julia—!"
"They shall all hear the truth!" she cried. She hung on his arm, gesticulating.
"You wouldn't betray him?" said Rackham, sounding her.
"Him?" she said. "Poor Barnaby! He and I are the victims. Don't you understand yet? When she thought he was dead his mother—just to crush me, just to humble me in the dust!—hired this creature. Don't you remember how she sprung her on us? Who had heard of a marriage? Oh, it was a judgment on her when he came home!"