Medora, well knowing why this was, yet pretended not to know. “You must ask yourself for a reason then and no doubt your conscience will find it, Ned. We must cut a loss before long—you and me—for I don’t want to die under this. I can’t stand very much more and I dare say you feel the same.” “What d’you mean by ‘cut a loss’?” he asked. But after any pregnant remark of this description, Medora temporised for a time and preferred to be indefinite. “I don’t know what I mean,” she answered. “There’s times when I wish I was out of it, young as I am. I can suffer and suffer of course. I’m strong and there’s no limit to my endurance. But I’m beginning to ask myself ‘why?’ And for that matter there are one or two others asking me the same question.” “No doubt,” he said. “The woman’s always right if her face is pretty enough. You’ve got the art always to be in the right, and there’s only one on God’s earth, and that’s me, who knows you’re wickedly in the wrong quite as often as I am. It’s your wrongs in other people’s mouths that made me do wrong; and when you saw me setting out with all my heart to be patient and win you back again, you set yourself wickedly to work to break down my patience and egg me on. Again and again you’ve kept at me till I’ve gone too far and done evil; and then you’ve run about everywhere and let everybody know what a coward and brute I am.” “That’s the way you talk,” she said, “and I can only listen with my heart broken. You say these things for no reason but to make me angry, and as to patience, even you will grant, if there’s any justice left in you, that my patience has never broke down from the first. And when the people have talked, I’ve laughed it off and put a bright face on it.” “Yes, I know that bright face—as though you were saying, ‘you see I’m an angel already and only want the wings.’” “Oh, your tongue!” she answered. “To think that ever you could scourge a good wife with such bitter, biting words.” Then she wept and he cursed and went out. It was a scene typical of others; but from the moment that Medora heard of Kellock’s immersion she could not rest until she had let him know she knew it. They were meeting now unknown to Dingle, for though Jordan at first protested against any private conference, Medora quickly over-ruled him. For a month she had made it clear that only the wisdom of Mr. Kellock was keeping her sane; and he believed it. Nor was this altogether untrue, for Medora, now genuinely miserable, began to seek increasing sustenance and support from her old lover.