Tietjens looked at her attentively, as if with magpie anguish. "If," Sylvia went on with her denunciation, "you had once in our lives said to me: 'You whore! You bitch! You killed my mother. May you rot in hell for it . . . .' If you'd only once said something like it . . . about the child! About Perowne! . . . you might have done something to bring us together. . . ." Tietjens said: "That's, of course, true!" "I know," Sylvia said, "you can't help it. . . . But when, in your famous county family pride--though a youngest son!--you say to yourself: And I daresay if . . . Oh, Christ! . . . you're shot in the trenches you'll say it . . . oh, between the saddle and the ground! that you never did a dishonourable action. . . . And, mind you, I believe that no other man save one has ever had more right to say it than you. . . ." Tietjens said: "You believe that!" "As I hope to stand before my Redeemer," Sylvia said, "I believe it. . . . But, in the name of the Almighty, how could any woman live beside you . . . and be for ever forgiven? Or no: not forgiven: ignored! . . . Well, be proud when you die because of your honour. But, God, you be humble about . . . your errors in judgment. _You_ know what it is to ride a horse for miles with too tight a curb-chain and its tongue cut almost in half. . . . You remember the groom your father had who had the trick of turning the hunters out like that. . . . And you horse-whipped him, and you've told me you've almost cried ever so often afterwards for thinking of that mare's mouth. . . . Well! Think of _this_ mare's mouth sometimes! You've ridden me like that for seven years. . . ." She stopped and then went on again: "Don't you know, Christopher Tietjens, that there is only one man from whom a woman could take '_Neither I condemn thee_' and not hate him more than she hates the fiend! . . ." Tietjens so looked at her that he contrived to hold her attention. "I'd like you to let me ask you," he said, "how I could throw stones at you? I have never disapproved of your actions." Her hands dropped dispiritedly to her sides. "Oh, Christopher," she said, "don't carry on that old play acting. I shall never see you again, very likely, to speak to; You'll sleep with the Wannop girl to-night: you're going out to be killed to-morrow. _Let's_ be straight for the next ten minutes or so. And give me your attention. The Wannop girl can spare that much if she's to have all the rest. . . ." She could see that he was giving her his whole mind. "As you said just now," he exclaimed slowly, "as I hope to meet my Redeemer I believe you to be a good woman. One that never did a dishonourable thing." She recoiled a little in her chair. "Then!" she said, "you're the wicked man I've always made believe to think you, though I didn't." Tietjens said: "No! . . . Let me try to put it to you as I see it." She exclaimed: "No! . . . I've been a wicked woman. I have ruined you. I am not going to listen to you." He said: