Grayle lit another cigarette, coughed and fetched himself a syphon and tumbler.
"You're begging the question," he said at length. "You can't define the conditions of Sonia's happiness."
"I know what will make her unhappy. That's good enough as a negative definition."
Mrs. O'Rane pushed her chair back a few inches and rose to her feet. She looked round for her coat and walked to the chair where Grayle had laid it.
"I've said I'm ready to face everything and everybody," she said over her shoulder, as she slipped her arms into the sleeves.
"But, please God! you don't know what you're facing!" O'Rane cried with an outburst of emotion which he was no longer able to contain. "Grayle, you say you love her! If you care a snap of the fingers for her, if you've any humanity, any decent feeling in the whole of your composition, if you hope for mercy in this world or the next, you've got your opportunity now! The one thing you can do for her abiding happiness is to take my hand and swear you'll never see her again. You know it is! You can walk out of this house and leave her so that no one will dare to say a word against her for fear of being thrashed within an inch of his life. If she doesn't get on well with me, if we part by common consent, that's my fault; everyone will say that I was always eccentric, that she was a fool to marry me, that I've spoiled her life.... Will you do that, Grayle? Will you shew that what you call your love for her means something?"
As he ended, I heard a muffled banging on the front door. George hurried away, and a moment later there came the sound of an engine starting.
"It was only the taximan," he explained, as he came back. "He's got a train to catch at Victoria, so I paid him off. We can telephone for another one when it's wanted."
Mrs. O'Rane looked at her watch and frowned.
"I wish you hadn't done that, George," she cried petulantly. "It was pouring when we came, and now we shall probably have to walk home.... I don't see that there's anything more to be said. It's very kind of everyone to take so much trouble about me, but, if I'm prepared to go through with it, that ends the matter."