“Are you mad, Grace? What do you mean?”
“I’ve been—unfaithful.”
He said nothing, he did not move, but a trembling came over his fleshy limbs and his face turned deathly white. Still he could scarcely believe. She went on with dry throat, forcing out the words that came unwillingly.
“I’m unworthy of the love and confidence that you gave me. I’ve deceived you shamefully. I’ve committed—adultery!”
The word hit him like a blow, and with a cry of rage he stepped forward to his wife, cowering before him, and seized her shoulders. He seized her roughly, cruelly, with strong hands, so that she set her teeth to repress the cry of pain.
“What d’you mean? Have you been in love with someone else? Tell me who it is.”
She did not answer, looking at him in terror, and he shook her angrily; he was blind with rage now, in a condition which she had never seen before.
“Who is it?” he repeated. “You’d better tell me.”
She shrank away from him, but he held her fast with ruthless hands, and he tightened them so that she could have screamed with pain.
“Reggie Bassett,” she cried at last.