But he grasped her arm. "Come back," he said, "right into the room," and forced her, trembling, down into a low chair. "Now tell me," he repeated. "Don't keep me waiting--I can't stand it. I won't hurt you." He leant over her, grasping her soft arm. But still Bella said nothing. Her free hand was toying with the fringe of her blue sash. She had become very pale, a sickly yellow colour which made her violet eyes seem blue,--for one terrible moment Oliver thought she was going to faint. "Why should I tell you?" she muttered at last, "you can't force me to tell you. It's a matter personal to myself. It's no business of yours. I've never spent any of the money on you,"--she unfortunately added, "at least hardly any." Germaine took his hand from her arm. "My God!" he said, "my God!" Did a dim gleam of what he was feeling penetrate Bella's brain? "I don't know why you should trouble to ask me," she said defiantly. "Surely you must know well enough." "I daresay I'm stupid, but I find it very difficult to guess which of the two, Joliffe or--or Uvedale, is your lover." "My lover? Joliffe--Uvedale?" Bella started to her feet, the colour rushed back into her face. She was shaking with anger and indignation. "How dare you insult me so?" she gasped. "You wouldn't have dared to say such a thing if my father had been alive! How dare you say, how dare you _think_, I have a lover?" and then with quivering pain she gave a little cry, "Oh, Oliver!" Germaine looked at her grimly enough. What a fool--what an abject fool he had been! It fed his anger to see that Bella had so poor an opinion of his intelligence as to suppose that he would believe her denial. "I know you are lying," he said briefly. "I _know_ it is either Joliffe or Uvedale." "But, Oliver--indeed it isn't!" She was looking at him with a very curious expression; the fear, the real terror, there had been in her face, had left it. She was staring at her husband as if she were seeking to find on his face some indication of a distraught, unhinged mind. But he looked cool, collected, stern,--and anger again surged up in Bella's heart. If he were sane she would never--never forgive him his vile suspicion of her. Was it for this that she, Bella, had always gone so straight--never even been tempted to go otherwise, in spite of all the admiration lavished on her? There had been a time in Bella Germaine's life, some two years before, when she had often rehearsed this scene, when she had been so haunted by the fear of it that it had been a constant nightmare. But never had she imagined the conversation between Oliver and herself taking the turn it now had. Never, in her most anguished dreams, had Oliver accused her of having--a lover. But she had known, only too well, with what anger and amazement he would learn the lesser truth.