"Hubert," she began again, as though in some way his name was a shield, and went to him, "let me explain----" but he waved her aside.

"What's the use?" he said gloomily. "It's all so obvious. The gutter Press has let itself go over me for weeks as the mysterious, self-centred Husband; the man who sacrificed his wife! I don't see why you should explain. It only makes things worse."

"But you don't see," she answered. "The husband wasn't you, any more than people in your novels. I wrote it--wrote it just for fun" (he snorted with an irony that even she observed), "never meaning the Press or any one--and then one day Mr. Alison----"

"Oh, _he_ was in it?" Hubert asked with a swift pa.s.sion. The old antipathy revived. That young a.s.s always _had_ been in it, somehow.

"He promised never to tell any one," said Helena. "You know, we wanted money so."

He laughed scornfully. "Oh yes, we wanted money. Money's everything.

So long as we have money, what does it matter everybody knowing you think me a selfish brute or that----?" He broke off abruptly.

It was clear that he mastered himself only with an effort. "Have you _got_ the book?" he asked with an icy calmness, presently. "I suppose as your husband I've the right to read it?"

She could not answer. Somehow she got to the door, to her own room; unlocked her jewel-case and took from it the loathsome little book in its clean, innocent, green cover: then she went down and handed it without a word to him.

"So this is it?" he said with all Scorn in the words. He opened it at random. "'I am the background,'" he read in slow, cold tones as to a child; "'the background for _his_ work no less than the wall-paper of the one room where he can write; and I must be as quiet.'"

She stood there, thrown back fifteen years, a girl again before her governess: and he little suspected that with those words he was killing all her penitence and injuring her love.

"Anything sounds rubbish if you read it out," she suddenly blazed at him in quite another mood.

He shut the little book with a mild glance of surprise. "Don't let's have any scenes," he said once more. "This has just happened. It's pretty ghastly; don't let's make it worse. You'd better go to bed when you feel tired; I shall just sit and read--I want to know the worst.

Don't wait up for me. It'd be rather a mockery to wish each other good-night!"

He moved towards the door. It was the time they always spent together, the best of her day.

She stood by the mantel-piece, leaning for support on it, wondering how any one could be so cruel--and feeling she deserved his cruelty.... It was so awful, put as he had put it: yet she had never meant----

His hand was on the door. She moved a few steps forward.

"Hugh," she cried, as though the name must surely explain everything: but he did not turn, even. He shut the door, quietly.

Helena threw herself face downwards on the sofa, but she could not cry.

CHAPTER XXII

THE IRON IN THE SOUL

To Helena the most terrible part about her husband's att.i.tude was his astounding calmness. If he had but raged and stormed, she could have endured it. She might even have explained. What she could not bear was this chill resignation.

"We had better talk as usual in front of Lily," was all he said, coldly, before breakfast the next morning. "There's no reason why she should guess that anything is different."

"Must it be different?" she brought herself to say, though even that was difficult, with him like this.

As usual, he laughed contemptuously. "Do you expect it to be just the same, when I know, everybody knows----" He broke off. "Well," he said, "I suppose _most_ married couples spend their time living up to their domestics. It's only we were lucky for a bit...."

They talked about the weather, then, and the day's news till Lily had gone out; he even called her "dear," but she could not live up to that: and when they were alone again, he gave a sigh which she interpreted to mean relief and finally retired behind his propped-up morning paper.

When he had finished breakfast--she ate nothing--he moved silently into his accustomed chair.

She moved across as usual to light a match for his after-breakfast pipe.

"No thanks," he said brutally. "I don't want to smoke. And I shan't work to-day of course."

She went out, hardened against such a foul attack, and half a minute later, from the next room, heard him strike a match....

Soon after eleven, when he had gone--work or no--into his own room, Lily announced Mr. Alison.

"Yes, I suppose so," she said dully.

He came in, very different from his late jaunty self, and threw a rapid glance at her, limp on the sofa. Her red eyes told their tale.

"You know then?" he asked. It was in some ways a relief.

She waited until she judged Lily to be safely through the swing-door: then she got up, by a natural instinct, and confronted him.

"I wonder," she said, "you dare come at all."

He looked anxiously about him. "Tell me," he asked almost in a whisper, "is he very sick?"

It was her turn to laugh contempt. "Oh, of course you think of yourself first! You're safe, though, here; trust him not to come near _me_!"

"No," said the other with an absurd dignity, "you wrong me. I meant, is he jealous?"

"Jealous?" she retorted in bewilderment. "No, why should he be? Of what?"

Geoffrey Alison suddenly found this difficult to answer and whilst he hesitated, feeling justly hurt, the storm was on him with its utmost force.

"I wonder," she said once again, for Man flies to a tag in moments of emotion, "I wonder you dare come and see me. I trusted you with all my happiness--with everything; you swore you'd never fail me; and now----"

She spread her arms in a pathetic gesture; then suddenly inadequate, a girl: "It really is too bad of you."

"Oh, come I say," he started. He had arrived full of shame and dread, realising from his newspaper that he had been tricked into a betrayal; but now that her onslaught was so tame--merely "too bad,"--he visibly regained his courage. "I think," he went on, almost aggrieved, "you might give me a chance of clearing myself. It's not my fault at all, it's that swine Blatchley. I dined with him three nights ago and utterly refused to say a word about it, but he tricked me somehow. I still don't see how the cad did it, but he must have because n.o.body else knew. I'm awfully sorry, Zoe----"

That roused her. "Don't call me that," she broke in fiercely. "Never call me that again. As though I didn't loathe the name and everything it stands for! You wouldn't understand. It's wrecked everything, spoilt my whole life."

"Oh, come I say," he repeated automatically in a half-dazed manner.

"I hate it," she said, working herself up; "hate the book, hate everything to do with it, hate you. I wish to goodness I had never met you; then this never would have happened."

"Oh, come I say," he said a third time, still standing close beside the door, "I don't think that's fair. I only did it as a good turn to you.

I thought it would be a new interest; you'd always so much time to spare; and then it might be useful too, the money----"

"Oh, I know," she interrupted. "You meant well. People always do."

It was an old cynicism new to her. She saw life wrecked before her feet--and here was the fool who had tried to help her.