“You told me you came here on account of Olivia.”
“Of course.”
“Well—I must ask you again the same everlasting ‘Why?’ How could you dare to marry her with this lie on your soul?”
“Yes. How dared I?” said Triona dejectedly.
“But wouldn’t it have been quite simple to tell her the truth? You could have afforded to make a clean breast of it. You had proved yourself a remarkable man, apart from—from the Triona myth. And she is big enough to have stood it. Why, in God’s name, didn’t you trust her?”
Triona threw out his hands helplessly. He did not know. Again he pleaded the unseen power that had driven him. When he had tried to resist, it was too late.
“And now you think me a fool and a knave.”
“I think you’re a fool,” said Olifant.
“But not a scoundrel? I should like to know. You were the first man who really held out the hand of friendship to me. Till then people regarded me as an interesting specimen. You took me on my human side. I shall never forget coming to your sister’s house at Oxford. It was a new and wonderful atmosphere.”
“If that is so,” said Olifant, “why didn’t it compel confidence—something of the real truth? I see you now telling my sister and myself your fairy tale; in the same fervid way as you’ve been telling me the truth this morning.”