"Yes. Nobody knows--not a soul. It was a mad thing--four years ago in Marseille I met a girl, a little dressmaker there. I went off my head and married her, and then a month later she ran off with a merchant chap, a Greek. I didn't care; we got on as badly as anything ... but there you are. No one knows. That's the whole thing, Maggie. I thought at first I wouldn't tell you. I was beginning to care for you too much, as a matter of fact, and then when your uncle asked me to dinner, I told myself I was a fool to go. Then when I saw how you trusted me, I thought I'd be a cad and let it continue, but somehow ... you've got an influence over me ... You've made me ashamed of things I wouldn't have hesitated about a year ago. And the funny thing is it isn't your looks. I can say things to you I couldn't to other women, and I'll tell you right away that there are lots of women attract me more. And yet I've never felt about any woman as I do about you, that I wanted to be good to her and care for her and love her. It's always whether they loved me that I've thought about ... Well, now I've told you, you see that I'd better go, hadn't I? You see ... you see." She looked up at him. "I've got to think. It makes a difference, of course. Can we meet after a week and talk again?" "Much better if I don't see you any more. I'll go away altogether--abroad again." "No--after a week--" "Much better not." "Yes. Come here after a week. And if we can't be alone I'll give you a letter somehow ... Please, Martin--you must." "Maggie, just think--" "No--after a week." "Very well, then," he turned on her fiercely. "I've been honest. I've told you. I've done all I can. If I love you now it isn't my fault." He left the room, not looking at her again. And she stood there, staring in front of her. CHAPTER VI THE PROPHET IN HIS OWN HOME Martin walked into the street with a confused sense of triumph and defeat, that confusion that comes to all sensitive men at the moment when they are stepping, against their will, from one set of conditions into another. He had gone into that house, only half an hour ago, determined to leave Maggie for ever--for his good and hers. He came back into the street realising that he was now, perhaps for the first time, quite definitely involved in some relation with her--good, bad, safe, dangerous he did not know--but involved. He had intended to tell her nothing of his marriage--and he had told her. He had intended to treat their whole meeting as something light, passing, inconsiderable--he had instead treated it as something of the utmost gravity. He had intended, above all, to prove to himself that he could do what he wished--he had found that he had no power.