"I _can't_ go," gasped Kent, fighting for his words. "I----If I cared for you less, I should! I can't go, because there's something I must tell you first. If ... but you won't. I want you to know ... I've a confession to make to you. It's over, but ... I've acted badly to you; I haven't the right to go to you. For God's sake, don't hate me more than you can help--I've been unfaithful." Her first sensation was as if, without warning, he had dealt her a brutal blow in the face. There was the same staggered sense of fright, succeeded by the same sick wave of horror. Another woman had known him? Her brain did not leap for details instantaneously, as a man's would have leapt in the inverse situation; the name the woman bore, her position--what had such things to do with it? Curiosity to compare her with herself in looks would follow; now, while she stared at him with bloodless features, she was conscious of nothing but the pollution: another woman had known him. Kent stared back at her, appalled at her aspect; but he divined what she felt no more than he could have understood her emotions had she analysed them for him. "Another woman had known him" was the tumult in her soul; he believed her pride outraged that he had known another woman. The difference was enormous. The curiosity and thirst for vengeance apart, the wife's sensation was what the husband's would have been, had he heard of her own defilement. But that he himself appeared to her defiled he could not grasp; unworthy, contemptible, corrupt, he realised, but "defiled," no. "Cynthia, forgive me!" She swayed a little as his voice struck her agony. "I'll try." "You see why I couldn't go?" "Yes," she said hoarsely. "I should have told you anyhow soon.... You aren't sorry I've told you?" "I don't know. I think ... I think I'm sorry just now. I shall be able to thank you for that later." "I did it for the best," said Kent. "You were right." He leant against the mantelpiece, his chin sunk. The only sound in the room came from the kettle, on which the woman's eyes were fixed intently. The clock of St. Giles-in-the-Fields tolled four. "What am I to do?" he said. "Oh," she moaned, "don't ask me; I can't think yet.... You've killed me, Humphrey--you've killed me!" He dropped before her chair and stroked her hand. Her pain writhed like a live thing at his touch, but, in pity for him, she let the hand lie still and suffered. "Did you ... love her so much?" she asked. "God knows I didn't!" "And yet----Humphrey, she wasn't----?" "I was mad. She was a lady. It wasn't love; I didn't love her at all.... If you were a man, you'd understand. I sinned with my body, but my mind--she never had that ...it was with you--with you. It was the animal in me--how can I explain to an angel?" Presently she said: