he, immaculate and composed, his face coldly expressionless, yet with
a hint of something warmer, a suppressed glow, beneath the deliberately
chill glance of those curious light-grey eyes--the man and bigoted
fanatic fighting for supremacy within him.

"Hugh! Answer me! Don't sit staring at me like that!" Diane's voice held
a sharpened sound.

At last he spoke, very slowly and carefully.

"There has been no mistake, Diane. Everything that has been done has
been with my sanction--by my order. Our marriage has been a culpable
mistake. Catherine realised it from the beginning. I only realise
my full guilt now that I am punished. But whatever I can do in
atonement--reparation, that I have made up my mind to do. The first--the
chief thing--is that our married life is at an end."

She heard him with a curious absence of surprise. Somehow, from the
instant she had seen his dismantled room she had known, known surely,
that the long fight between herself and Catherine was over. And that
Catherine had won.

"At an end? Hugh, what do you mean? What are you going to do? You're
not, you're not going to send me away?"

"No, not that. I've no right to punish you. You've been guilty of no
fault--"

"Except the fault of being myself," she flung back bitterly.