She stood silent, looking into his face, thinking how she would commence her attack upon him. She fixed her eyes upon him, standing quite upright, squeezing her own right hand with the fingers of the left. 'Oh,' she said, in a whisper 'that is the reason why I am told that I am to be--off.'
'That was not the reason.'
'What,--can there be more reason than that,--better reason than that? Unless, indeed, it be that as you have learned to love another so also you have learned to--hate me.'
'Listen to me, Winifred.'
'No, sir; no Winifred now! How did you dare to kiss me, knowing that it was on your tongue to tell me I was to be cast aside? And so you love--some other woman! I am too old to please you, too rough,--too little like the dolls of your own country! What were your--other reasons? Let me hear your--other reasons, that I may tell you that they are lies.'
The reasons were very difficult to tell, though when put forward by Roger Carbury they had been easily pleaded. Paul knew but little about Winifred Hurtle, and nothing at all about the late Mr Hurtle. His reasons curtly put forward might have been so stated. 'We know too little of each other,' he said.
'What more do you want to know? You can know all for the asking. Did I ever refuse to answer you? As to my knowledge of you and your affairs, if I think it sufficient, need you complain? What is it that you want to know? Ask anything and I will tell you. Is it about my money? You knew when you gave me your word that I had next to none. Now I have ample means of my own. You knew that I was a widow. What more? If you wish to hear of the wretch that was my husband, I will deluge you with stories. I should have thought that a man who loved would not have cared to hear much of one--who perhaps was loved once.'
He knew that his position was perfectly indefensible. It would have been better for him not to have alluded to any reasons, but to have remained firm to his assertion that he loved another woman. He must have acknowledged himself to be false, perjured, inconstant, and very base. A fault that may be venial to those who do not suffer, is damnable, deserving of an eternity of tortures, in the eyes of the sufferer. He must have submitted to be told that he was a fiend, and might have had to endure whatever of punishment a lady in her wrath could inflict upon him. But he would have been called upon for no further mental effort. His position would have been plain. But now he was all at sea. 'I wish to hear nothing,' he said.