For an hour she stood at the dining-room window, which looked upon the little circular drive in front of the house, watching for her husband’s arrival. Her every fibre yearned and dreaded. At last he appeared, swung open the gate and strode in with a quick glance at the pale face behind the window. Irene’s hand flew to her heart. She stepped back, pierced by the glance, and waited. In another moment Gerard was in the room. He clapped his hat on the table and advanced a pace or two, fixing her with his shifty blue eyes.
“Now, let us have it out at once. What the devil have you got to say for yourself?”
The look, the tone, the insult dashed upon her like a douche of icy water upon an hysterical girl. She drew herself up, quivering, with a flash in her eyes.
“You are forgetting yourself, Gerard.”
Yet an instant afterwards she softened and humbled herself as a woman does towards the man she has been yearning for. She went to him with outstretched arms, pleading in her face.
“Forgive me, dear! Forgive me!”
He thrust her away, rather roughly.
“Don’t make a scene. I hate it. That’s why I stayed away, so as to put a cooling night in front of our interview. But I want an explanation, and I think I’m entitled to it.”
Irene looked at him helplessly. She was on the high seas, rudderless.
“I thought you would willingly have given your life for Hugh,” she said. “You were deeply moved—said there was nothing you would not give. The scheme flashed on me. I never doubted your assent—as God hears me, Gerard, I felt the certainty like an inspiration.”