The shock lasted but a second; blood rushed to her face; without a word she straightened up, stepped forward, refitted her latch-key.
“Eris,” he whimpered, “won’t you speak to me?”
As she wrenched open the front door, light from the hall gas-jet fell across the man’s pale visage, revealing his collarless shirt and shabby clothes.
Already she had set foot inside. Perhaps the ghastly pallor of the man halted her—perhaps some occult thing within the law held her fettered in chains invisible. She stood with head averted, dumb, motionless, grasping her key convulsively.
“My God,” he whispered, “won’t you even look at me?”
“What do you want?” she asked in the ghost of a voice. Then, slowly, she turned and looked at her husband.
“I’m sick——” He leaned weakly against the vestibule door, and she saw his closing eyes and the breath labouring and heaving his bony chest.
What was this miserable creature to her, who had cheated her girlhood and struck her a blow that never could entirely heal?
What had she to do with any sickness of this man and his poverty and misery?
“Why should you—come—to me?” she asked. Suddenly she felt her body quivering all over. “What do I owe to you?” she cried, revolted.