"Yes, if you must know."
He almost flung her from him.
"And you believe what that woman says! She's a liar, and always has been! She tried the same lowdown game on me—only yesterday. She told me that there was something between you and Dakers, and I threatened to wring her neck if she ever dared to repeat the lie 250 again . . ." Marie raised her head, and her cheeks were fiery red. It gave her a fierce delight to feel that perhaps at last she had the power to hurt him.
"It isn't a lie!" she said, clearly. "I love him."
A cruel shaft of light fell through the window, on the deathly whiteness of Chris' face as he stood helplessly staring at his wife. Marie had never seen agony in a man's face before, but she saw it now, and she averted her eyes with a little shiver.
"It's better you should know the truth," she said at last in a whisper. "I wanted to tell you before, but I was afraid."
"And—Dakers?" She hardly recognized her husband's voice as he asked the hoarse question, and it hurt her to hear that he no longer spoke of his friend by the well-known nickname.
She shook her head.
"He doesn't know; he's never said one word to me that you, or anyone else, could not hear . . ." She clasped her hands together passionately. "I wish he had!" she said chokingly. "I tried to make him, but it was no use . . ." She looked at Chris with feverish eyes. "It sounds dreadful, doesn't it?" she said piteously. "I should think it did if I heard anyone else say it. But it's the truth. I would go to Italy with him to-morrow if he would take me."
Chris stood like a man turned to stone. Then suddenly he fell on his knees beside her, clasping her in his shakings arms.