"That's the finish of all this dancing and merrymaking," he said rudely, and poured himself out a glass of water, which old Mrs Morgan's thought for their comfort had provided in chill readiness on a side table. "I have always felt that this frivolity was out of keeping with the seriousness of the times. Perhaps you will give me some explanation of your extraordinary behaviour. What is Steele to you? I saw there was something between you when you met. It was not difficult to see. Your manner attracted general attention. I won't have my wife make herself conspicuous with any man. Steele!" He voiced the name with an oath, and banged down his glass so that the water spilled over on the polished table. Prudence watched him stonily, but without surprise, while he sopped up the water with his handkerchief. It was so characteristic of him to be careful in small matters even in a moment of great emotional strain. "I am tired," she said, making the only appeal that presented itself to her mind whereby to avoid the discussion. "I would rather not talk about these things now." "Tired!" he ejaculated angrily. "You won't have to complain of that in future. I will see that you take more rest. And you _must_ talk of these things. I have every right to insist upon an explanation." "Very well," she said, in quiet tones that should have warned him to desist. "But I think you are unwise. Mr Steele, when he met me to-night, had no idea that I was married; and, in the surprise of seeing him again, I suppose I betrayed my gladness. I did not mean to do that. It was all so unexpected." "But what is he to you?" Edward Morgan demanded. "Good God! can't you answer a plain question? What has there been between you and Steele in the past?" Prudence turned away from him to conceal the quivering of her lips, but her voice was steady when she answered despite the wild beating of her heart. "I loved him," she said simply, "and he loved me. There was that between us. But he went away, and I thought--he had forgotten." A long silence fell between them, a heavy silence. In all his life Edward Morgan had never received such a blow to his pride as this. She had dealt him a blow before when she sought to break their engagement; but that was trifling as compared with this--this brazen confession of love for another man. She had never loved him--her husband. She had been in love with another man all these years. "And yet you married me!" he said in a hard voice, snapping the silence abruptly. Had she not been goaded past endurance, Prudence, would not have said what she did say; she was ashamed of it later. But his manner and his clumsy insistence irritated her into retorting. "At least I tried to evade doing you that injury," she said. His face became purple with anger. Nothing she could have planned to say could have enraged him more than that cutting reminder at such a time of her reluctance to become his wife.