He made an impatient motion that implied a negative, and she threw herself once more upon her knees at his feet. "You will deny this atrocious charge?" "If I am asked I shall deny it of course," he said coolly; "but you don't suppose I am going to talk about it without?" "But--but--that man believes it to be true!" "Well, let him." "Robert--dear Robert," she cried, "you must not, you shall not treat it like that! It is as if you were indifferent to this dreadful statement." "Because it is better to let it rest, madam, so let it be." "No!" she cried, with a wave as it were of her old trust sweeping all before it; "I cannot let it rest. If you will not speak in your own defence, I must!" "What do you mean?" he said hastily. "That if for his child's sake, Robert Hallam will not defend himself against such a vile and cruel lie, his wife will!" "What will you do?" he said, with an ugly sneer upon his lip. "See this man myself, and force him to deny it--to declare that it is not true. My husband cannot sit down patiently with that charge flung against his wife's honour and his own." Me sat gazing at her from beneath his thick eyebrows for a few minutes as she paced the room, agitated almost beyond bearing; and then he spoke in the most matter-of-fact way. "You'll do nothing of the kind." "Not speak?" "No; I forbid it." "Forbid it?" "Yes. Do you suppose I want my leave stopped? Do you want to send me back to the gang who are chained like dogs?" "Hush!" she cried, with a shudder; and she covered her face, as if to shut out some terrible sight. "Do you not feel that you are running risks by remaining silent?" "I should run greater risks by having the matter talked about. That great fool, Steve, must be warned to be more cautious in what he says, for all our sakes." "Robert!" in a tone of horror. "There, there, wife, that will do! Let's talk it over without sentiment; I haven't a bit of romance left in me, my dear. Life out here has cleared it off. You may as well know the truth as at any future time. Bah! Let's throw away all this flimsy foolery. You've known it all along, only you've been too brave to show it." "I--known the truth?" she faltered. "You believe this?" "Yes," he said, without reading the horror and despair in her eyes; and the brutal callousness of his manner seemed to grow. "What's the use of shamming innocence? You knew what was in the box." "I knew what my husband told me; that there were papers to prove his innocence," she replied. "You knew that?" "They were my husband's words; and in my wifely faith I said that they were true." He looked at her mockingly. "You play your part well, Millicent," he said; "but remember we are in Sydney, both twenty years older than when we first met at King's Castor. Is it not time we talked like man and woman, and not, after all that we have gone through, like a sentimental boy and girl?" "Robert!"