"Well, are you going to sit there all day?" she asked. "Is it so pleasant that you want to stay? Do you still think you can teach me the error of my ways?" From the first moment John Fanshaw had not doubted the truth of what she said. Things forced out by passion in that way were true. Her stormy remorse added a proof--a remorse which did not even attempt retractation or evasion. And his memory got to work. He knew now why Christine had been so reluctant to go to Caylesham. There were things back in the past too, which now became intelligible--how that acquaintance had grown and grown, how constant the companionship had been, one or two little things which had seemed odd, and then how there had been a sudden end, and they had come to see very little of Caylesham, how neither of them had seen him for a long while, till John had sent Christine to borrow fifteen thousand pounds. "For God's sake, go!" she cried. He rose to his feet slowly, and her fascinated eyes watched his face. His eyes were dull, and his face seemed to have gone grey. He asked her one question: "How long ago?" "Oh, all over years ago," she answered, with an impatient groan, drumming her fingers on the arms of her chair. He nodded his head in a thoughtful way. "Good-bye, Lady Harriet," he said. "Good-bye, John." Suddenly she sprang up. "Stop! What are you going to say to Christine?" He looked bewildered still. "I don't know. Oh, really I don't know! My God, I never had any idea of this, and I don't know! I can't--can't realise it all, you know--and Caylesham too!" "Are you going to tell her I told you?" "I don't know what I'm going to do, Lady Harriet--I don't know." "Ah!" With a cry of exasperation she turned away and sat down in her chair again. "Good-bye," he muttered, and slouched awkwardly out of the room. She sat on where she was, very still, frowning, her hand holding her chin, only her restless eyes roving about the room. She was like some handsome, fierce, caged beast. There she sat for close on an hour, thinking of what she was and of what she had done--of how he had shown her the picture of herself, and of how, from malice and in her wrath, she had betrayed Christine. Once only in all this time her lips moved; they moved to mutter: "What a cursed woman I am!" CHAPTER XII IMAGES AND THEIR WORK