He paused--even an outburst of fury or denial would have been welcome. "To begin with," he continued in an uncertain voice, "I thought it was the hopelessness of it all that was making it so dreadful, but when our marriage was actually in sight--of hope, at least--I felt matters were only getting worse. My thoughts were like sand and fire--my love was like the salt water I compared it to long ago, with madness in each draught. I felt our marriage would be a bigger hell than anything that had gone before it--and yet, I wanted you! Oh, God! I wanted you!" She bowed forward suddenly, over her clenched hands. "Janey, Janey--I don't want to hurt you more than I must. It's not your fault that every thought of you was fire and poison to me. You were just a weapon in fate's hands to wound me--we were both in fate's hands, to wound each other." Paradoxically it was at that moment the old impulse returned. He came forward, holding out his arms to her. But this time she shrank back, cowering into the chair. Her movement brought him to his senses. "You see how I can hardly speak to you. I must get on, and get done. I want to tell you how I met _her_ ... Tony." Janey shuddered. She had now come to the most awful pain of all. "Tony ..." repeated Quentin. She noticed how he dwelt on the word, as if he were drawing strength from it, and at the same time she saw a slight change in his manner. He lifted his head and spoke more steadily. "I met her at a literary function, and I sat beside her all the evening. I remember every minute--I didn't speak much, nor did she, but a wonderful simplicity and calm seemed to radiate from her, a beautiful innocence---- What is it, Janey?" "Nothing--go on." "She was so young, scarcely more than a child--young and sweet. When I got home that night I felt for the first time an infinite peace in my soul--I felt all quiet and simple. I didn't worry or brood any more. I wasn't in love with her then--oh, no!--but I wanted to meet her again, just for the quiet of it. I did meet her shortly afterwards, and it was as beautiful as before. Then suddenly it all rushed over me--I wanted her, for my own; because she was pure and childlike and simple and inexperienced." The confidence of his voice had grown, and in his eyes was something Janey had never seen there before. She now realised a little what Tony meant to him--what she, Janey, had never meant. She knew now that she could never win him back, and more, that she did not particularly want to. Tony stood to Quentin for all that was lovely and heroic in womanhood, whereas she, his Janey, had never been more to him than the incarnation of his own desperate passions. She stepped back, and the action was symbolical--she stepped out of his way. Her pleadings would no longer harass and shake him, she would leave him to his salvation, since he loved it better than the woman who had meekly renounced hers for his sake.