"
"Are you rebuking me? Are you contemptuous? What are you?" He leant back
and looked at her, smiling.
"If my husband would do what you've done, he might live," she said.
Marchmont nodded gravely; it was easy to see the odd way in which his
action fitted into the drama of her life.
"But we've no hills," she went on. "You leave London--all London
means--to wander on hills, high glorious hills; he'd leave it for a
villa, a small villa at a seaside place."
"Metaphors again?"
"It comes easier to talk in them sometimes. And I--I'm of my husband's
way of thinking."
"I don't believe it," he said again, but looking at her now with a little
touch of doubt.
"You'll never come back, will you?" she asked.
"Never," said he with a quiet certainty.
She rose with a restless sigh and walked to the fireplace.
"I couldn't," he went on. "I'm not fit for it; that's the end of the
matter. Use your own term of abuse. I shall hear plenty of them."
"I don't want to abuse you," she said. She walked quickly over to him,
gave him her hand for a moment, and then returned to her place.
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