'No,' she muttered, her heart fluttering strangely.
'For this travesty,' he answered; and coolly, as he stood before her, he twitched the sleeve of her shapeless gown, looking masterfully down at her the while, so that her eyes fell before his. 'Did you think it kind to me or fair to me,' he continued, almost sternly, 'to make that difficult, Julia, which my honour required, and which you knew that my honour required? Which, if I had not come to do, you would have despised me in your heart, and presently with your lips? Did you think it fair to widen the distance between us by this--this piece of play-acting? Give me your hand.'
She obeyed, trembling, tongue-tied. He held it an instant, looked at it, and dropped it almost contemptuously. 'It has not cleaned that step before,' he said. 'Now put up your hair.'
She did so with shaking fingers, her cheeks pale, tears oozing from under her lowered eyelashes. He devoured her with his gaze.
'Now go to your room,' he said. 'Take off that rag and come to me properly dressed.'
'How?' she whispered.
'As my wife.'
'It is impossible,' she cried with a gesture of despair; 'It is impossible.'
'Is that the answer you would have given me at Manton Corner?'
'Oh no, no!' she cried. 'But everything is changed.'