The sharpness of her cry, the way she straightened and stamped her foot and vibrated with indignation broke through his rage, even, and he stopped. "You don't know what you're saying." Her voice quivered. "You're accusing the best man friend you've ever had; you're cursing one of the best men that ever walked ground, and you're doing it without reason!" "Without reason, am I?" he parried, quieter, breathing hard, but controlling his voice. "It's without reason when he lives with me a month, seeing my wife day after day, knowing I've not seen her in years and then never breathing a word about it? It's without reason when he opens this room to you ... a room he's never let me look into, and tells you to use it? It's no reason when he runs away to town rather than face me here in your presence? Can you argue against that? "And it's without reason when you stand there flushed to your hair, you guilty woman?" He thumped the table with his fist. "You guilty woman," he repeated, just above a whisper. "You guilty--My wife, conspiring with your lover while he keeps me here by force, by brute force. Can you argue against that ... against that?" It was the great moment of Ann Lytton's life. It seemed as though the inner conflict was causing congestion in her chest, stilling her heart, clogging her breathing, making her blind and powerless to move or speak or think. It was the last struggle against her old manner of thought, against the old Ann, the strangling for once and for all that narrow conscience, the wiping out of that false conception of morality, for she emerged from her moment of doubt, of torment, a beautiful, brave creature. Her great sacrifice had been offered; it had been repulsed with contempt and now she stood free, ready to fight for her spiritual honor, her self-respect, in the face of a world's disapproval, if that should become necessary. "Yes, I can argue against that," she cried, closing her eyes and smiling in fine confidence. "I can, Ned Lytton. I can, because he is my lover, because the love he bears for me is pure, is good, is true holiness!" She leaned toward him across the table, still smiling and letting her voice drop to its normal tone, yet losing none of its triumphant resonance. "And you can say that," he jeered, "after he's been ... after you've been letting him keep you a month!" "Oh, you can't hurt me with your insults, Ned, for they won't go home. You know that statement isn't true; you know me too well for that. I'm your wife by law, Ned, but beyond that I'm as free as I was five years ago, before I ever saw you. Emancipating myself wasn't easy. I came out here hampered by tradition and terms and prejudice, but I've learned the truth from this country, these people, from ... you. I've learned that without love, without sympathy, without understanding or the effort, the desire, to understand, no marriage is a marriage; that without them it is only ugly, hideous.