'Archie,' she said slowly, 'I wanted to tell you that I'm leaving Dick, whatever happens. If you want me still, I'll come back to the farm.'
Archie did not speak. Not even his expression altered. The pain he had suffered had dulled his senses. His silence, his undecipherable features spared Norah nothing of humiliation. What was he thinking of her? Like a child she wondered if any one was marking up her humiliation against the harm she had done. Her words rang in her ear. She could not force herself to add a syllable to them, though she saw how inadequate they were. How Archie must despise her! Unfaithful even in adultery. Taking a man and leaving him in a few weeks. Like any harlot: less constant than the animals, whose fidelity endures the breeding season.
In fact, Archie had no clear thoughts. He felt that waves were buffeting him: his bones ached with fever: his brain was numb. Like Norah, he had turned his back to the future, and this fresh shuffling of the bits of coloured glass that make the kaleidoscope of life, as yet meant nothing to him. He could not focus his thinking. Presently one thought emerged. Not a very lofty one. 'You've got her back from Ward,' crooned his instinct of possession.
Then an idea flickered through his brain, stabbing like a white-hot wire.
'Does this mean she still loves me?'
His body seemed to come to life and to flow with young, clean blood. He must sound the amazing possibility at once and risk the pain that denial would bring.
'Why are you ... what makes you give up Ward?' he stammered.
Norah felt explanation beyond her powers. Surely it was not demanded of her to tell how she had come to despise and distrust her lover; and how she had been driven to parry the danger she sensed.
'I can't go on,' she answered simply.
But Archie's stoicism had deserted him, and he found the suspense more atrocious than yesterday's certitude.