Then she heard herself speaking. "It's only a rag, not one of the real evening papers." She dared not say what she had got to say. She dared not face the storm. Hate, now, that was what ruled in her chaotic brain, hate and loathing for that treacherous, mean, little Mr. Alison. She knew she always had despised him, now--but he had been so kind.... Why had she trusted a weak man like him? Why had she ever written--married--been born--anything? Oh, what would happen now? Her husband got up suddenly. That broke her tortured reverie, broke her inaction. "Well, I shall write at once," he stormed. "Let's have the filthy thing." She rose weakly to her feet and held it out to him. "What will you say?" she asked, still feebly trying to gain time, like men faced by a rope that they cannot possibly avoid. "Say?" he repeated scornfully. "Tell them what they are and contradict the whole thing as a lie." She almost staggered and caught hold of his arm. "No," she said. "Listen. You--you mustn't." "Mustn't?" He looked curiously at her. She suddenly burst into tears, clinging to him there as if for pity. "Hubert," she sobbed out, "don't take it as real. You're the best husband there could ever be. I wrote like you do. It was only----" "My God!" he cried, clutching her arms roughly. "You _didn't_ write it? You didn't----" He broke off and let go of her, holding her one moment at arm's length. She never could forget his eyes. He stooped and picked up the cutting. He read it slowly through, as if that might help--or possibly to calm himself. Helena fell limply on the sofa. Minutes seemed to pass in silence. Suddenly he crumpled up the little roll of paper and hurled it in the fireplace. Then he laughed and that alarmed her more than anything. "Well," he said, trying to speak naturally, "that's that, then. It's no use having scenes, is it?" He stood very still, looking vacantly before him as though not realising what it meant. "Hubert," she began again, as though in some way his name was a shield, and went to him, "let me explain----" but he waved her aside. "What's the use?" he said gloomily. "It's all so obvious. The gutter Press has let itself go over me for weeks as the mysterious, self-centred Husband; the man who sacrificed his wife! I don't see why you should explain. It only makes things worse." "But you don't see," she answered. "The husband wasn't you, any more than people in your novels. I wrote it--wrote it just for fun" (he snorted with an irony that even she observed), "never meaning the Press or any one--and then one day Mr. Alison----" "Oh, _he_ was in it?" Hubert asked with a swift passion. The old antipathy revived. That young ass always _had_ been in it, somehow. "He promised never to tell any one," said Helena. "You know, we wanted money so."