For all her recent eloquence upon unhappiness and divorce, it came to her now in some still subtle manner, that she had been speaking concerning things in the world of which she knew nothing. And one of them, perhaps, was love. Then every instinct within her revolted, all her innate delicacy, all the fastidious purity recoiled before the menace of his question. Love! Was it possible? Was this that she already felt, _love_? Could such treachery to herself, such treason to training and instinct arise within her and she not know it? Panic-stricken she raised her head; and at sight of him a blind impulse to finish with him possessed her--to crush out that menace--end it for ever--open his eyes to the inexorable truth. "Lean nearer," she said quietly. Every vestige of blood had left her face. "Listen to me. Two years ago I was told that I am a common foundling. Under the shock of that--disclosure--I ruined my life for ever.... Don't speak! I mean to check that ruin where it ended--lest it spread to--others. Do you understand?" "No," he said doggedly. She drew a steady breath. "Then I'll tell you more if I must. I ruined my life for ever two years ago!... I must have been quite out of my senses--they had told me that morning, very tenderly and pitifully--what you already know. I--it was--unbearable. The world crashed down around me--horror, agonized false pride, sheer terror for the future--" She choked slightly, but went on: "I was only eighteen. I wanted to die. I meant to leave my home at any rate. Oh, I know my reasoning was madness, the thought of their charity--the very word itself as my mind formed it--drove me almost insane. I might have known it was love, not charity, that held me so safely in their hearts. But when a blow falls and reason goes--how can a girl reason?" She looked down at her bridle hand. "There was a man," she said in a low voice; "he was only a boy then." Hamil's face hardened. "Until he asked me I never supposed any man could ever want to marry me. I took it for granted.... He was Gray's friend; I had always known him.... He had been silly sometimes. He asked me to marry him. Then he asked me again. "I was a debutante that winter, and we were rehearsing some theatricals for charity which I had to go through with.... And he asked me to marry him. I told him what I was and he still wished it." Hamil bent nearer from his saddle, face tense and colourless. "I don't know exactly what I thought; I had a dim notion of escaping from the disgrace of being nameless. It was the mad clutch of the engulfed at anything.... Not with any definite view--partly from fright, partly I think for the sake of those who had been kind to a--a foundling; some senseless idea that it was my duty to relieve them of a squalid burden--" She shook her head vaguely: "I don't know exactly--I don't know." "You married him." "Yes--I believe so." "Don't you _know_?" "Oh, yes," she said wearily, "I know what I did. It was that."