“That is not true,” she said, deliberately. “But that it doesn’t happen to be true is no thanks to you.” Kingslake, his nerves strained to the uttermost, had lost all self-control, and was letting himself go, but he recoiled a step before his wife’s gaze. “What do you mean by that?” he asked. “You really want me to tell you?” Her voice came to him icily. “Very well, then, I will. Two years ago, I was a wretched, unhappy woman because you had ceased to care for me, and I had therefore ceased to care for--anything. But I never suspected there was a reason--I thought it had just happened so--I thought I had somehow failed to keep your love. Then, quite by chance, I heard of Philippa Burton.” Robert’s face changed. “But till that day at the Priory----” he began. Cecily’s eyes suddenly fell. She turned her head aside, with a sort of unbearable shame. “Robert!” she urged in a low voice, “don’t try to deceive me any more. Before that day at the Priory you had seen her constantly--every day, in fact, for months.” He looked at her uncertainly. “And you knew this--all the time?” “Not all the time. Not till a few days before you took rooms for her in the village, and then only by the strangest chance.” There was a silence. Robert broke it in a curious, shamed voice. “Cecily, I swear to you that Miss Burton and I were only friends.” She stood tracing figures on the shelf of the mantelpiece with her forefinger. When she spoke it was very quietly. “You should be careful where you make love to your friends, Robert. The garden is a more or less public place.” He started, then began to pace the room. “Cecily!” he urged. “Listen----” She interrupted him with a sound that was half a sob. “Ah, Robert!--please don’t. What does it matter now? It hurts me so to hear you--and you see I _know_.... What does it matter when it first----” Her voice sank almost to a whisper, but she recovered herself. “Under the circumstances,” she added, “what was I to think of your invitation to Dick?” There was another silence. “Cecily,” he began again at last, clearing his throat, “do you--do you really imagine----?” She turned once more and looked him full in the face, and again his eyes fell before hers. “What I try to imagine, is that you _didn’t_ think,” she said, slowly. “You were so engrossed that you had forgotten--much. But sometimes, Robert--to be truthful--I find it hard to accept even that explanation.” He continued to walk restlessly about the room. “So you--you impute to me vile motives like that?” he asked, uneasily. “You _do_ think them vile? I’m glad of that,” she answered, slowly. “In any case you didn’t know Dick. He loves me as you have never loved me.” He turned sharply and gazed at her. “You dare to tell me that!”