Elizabeth was looking down. She could not bear his face. “And would you say I was a truthful woman?” she said. “If I were to tell you the truth, would you believe me, David?” “Yes,” said David at once. “Yes, I’d believe you. If you told me anything at all you’d tell me the truth. Why shouldn’t I believe you?” “Because the truth is very unbelievable,” said Elizabeth. David lifted his head and looked at her. “Oh, you’ll not lie,” he said. “Thank you,” said Elizabeth. After a moment’s pause, she went on. “Will you sit down, David? I don’t think I can speak if you walk up and down like that. It’s not very easy to speak.” He sat down in a big chair, that stood with its back to the window. “David,” she said, “when we were in Switzerland, you asked me how I had put you to sleep. You asked me if I had hypnotised you. I said, No. I want to know if you believed me?” “I don’t know what I believed,” said David wearily. The question appeared to him to be entirely irrelevant and unimportant. “When you hypnotise a person, you are producing an illusion,” said Elizabeth. “The effect of what I did was to destroy one. But whatever I did, when you asked me to stop doing it, I stopped. You do believe that?” “Yes—I believe that.” “I stopped at once—definitely. You must please believe that. Presently you will see why I say this.” All the time she had been standing quietly by the mantelpiece. Now she came across and kneeled down beside David’s chair. She laid her hands one above the other upon the broad arm, and she looked, not at David at all, but at her own hands. It was the penitent’s attitude, but David Blake, looking at her, found nothing of the penitent’s expression. The light shone full upon her face. There was a look upon it that startled him. Her face was white and still. The look that riveted David’s attention was a look of remoteness—passionless remoteness—and over all a sort of patience. Elizabeth looked down at her strong folded hands, and began to speak in a quiet, gentle voice. The sapphire in her ring caught the light. “David, just now you asked me why I married you. You never asked me that before. I am going to tell you now. I married you because I loved you very much. I thought I could help, and I loved you. That is why I married you. You won’t speak, please, till I have done. It isn’t easy.” She drew a long, steady breath and went on. “I knew you didn’t love me, you loved Mary. It wasn’t good for you. I knew that you would never love me. I was—content—with friendship. You gave me friendship. Then we came home. And you stopped loving Mary. I was very thankful—for you—not for myself.” She stopped for a moment. David was looking at her. Her words fell on his heart, word after word, like scalding tears. So she had loved him—it only needed that. Why did she tell him now when it was all too late—hideously too late? Elizabeth went on.