She realized while he was speaking, realized with a kind of nausea, which came suddenly upon her, that all he said was true. There was a peculiar note creeping into his voice that assailed her fastidious ears like a sudden descent to a subterranean region which she knew to exist, but of which she had never had first-hand knowledge. The subtle change of tone was telling her as nothing else could have done that it was perfectly true that she knew neither what his life had been nor anything about him. "Mary." In spite of an intense feeling for him it was beginning to make her wince to hear her name on his lips. "If you don't mind I think I'll tell you one or two things about my life and ... and how I came ... to get married." "I think perhaps I would rather not know." It was not she who said that. Long generations of Pridmores and Colthursts had suddenly taken charge and had answered for her. It was a tone he had never heard her use, not even at the dinner party at which she had discussed the question of divorce. It was almost as if she had hit him a blow and yet without intending to deal one. By this time he had grown so dazed and frightened that he had begun to lose his head. "The woman I married was not respectable, and that was why I didn't tell you." She drew away from him a little. It was quite an involuntary action, but he felt it like a knife in the flesh. In sick desperation he floundered on, suddenly losing touch with all the small amenities of speech and manner he had so painfully imposed upon himself. Moreover, he realized the fact with pangs that were almost murderous. There were notes from the Blackhampton gutter beginning to strike through his voice. "You don't know what my life has been," he said. "You don't know where I started from." Again she made that involuntary movement, almost as if she felt that the mere tone was defiling her. "You must let me tell you ... let me tell you all, if you don't mind. It'll help you understand." "I would rather you didn't." Again the Pridmores and the Colthursts were speaking. He looked at her with a wildness that made her shiver. An intense pity for this man had suddenly begun to do battle with the Colthursts and the Pridmores. There was something in those eyes, as there always had been, that was almost beyond her power to meet. "I never had a chance," he said, holding her in thrall with the voice she no longer recognized as his. "I've been handicapped out of the race. I'm going to tell you, Mary. It's not that I want your pity ... I ask more than that. It's more than pity will bring a sailorman like me into port." A kind of defiance of himself and of her had entered his tone. His words seemed to open a vein in her heart. She had a great compassion for this man, but with all her strength of soul, with all her independence, she knew and felt that voice had already told her that the facts of his life were going to prove more than she could bear.