n hers.

"Oh, not like that!" she exclaimed.

He seemed to make a stronger effort at self-control. "Please don't heed
me--but say what there is to say," he said in a level voice, his gaze on
the fire.

She stood before him, her arms hanging down, her clasped fingers
twisting restlessly.

"I don't know that there is much to say--beyond what I've told you."

There was a slight sound in Amherst's throat, like the ghost of a
derisive laugh. After another interval he said: "I wish to hear exactly
what happened."

She seated herself on the edge of a chair near by, bending forward, with
hands interlocked and arms extended on her knees--every line reaching
out to him, as though her whole slight body were an arrow winged with
pleadings. It was a relief to speak at last, even face to face with the
stony image that sat in her husband's place; and she told her story,
detail by detail, omitting nothing, exaggerating nothing, speaking
slowly, clearly, with precision, aware that the bare facts were her
strongest argument.

Amherst, as he listened, shifted his position once, raising his hand so
that it screened his face; and in that attitude he remained when she had
ended.

As she waited for him to speak, Justine realized that her heart had been
alive with tremulous hopes. All through her narrative she had counted on
a murmur of perception, an exclamation of pity: she had felt sure of
melting the stony image. But Amherst said no word.

At length he spoke, still without turning his head. "You have not told
me why you kept this from me."

A sob formed in her throat, and she had to wait to steady her voice.

"No--that was my wrong--my weakness. When I did it I never thought of
being afraid to tell you--I had talked it over with you in my own
mind...so often...before...."

"Well?"

"Then--- when you came back it was harder...though I was still sure you
would approve me."

"Why harder?"

"Because at first--at Lynbrook--I _could not_ tell it all over, in
detail, as I have now...it was beyond human power...and without doing
so, I couldn't make it all clear to you...and so should only have added
to your pain. If you had been there you would have done as I did.... I
felt sure of that from the first. But coming afterward, you couldn't
judge...no one who was not there could judge...and I wanted to spare
you...."

"And afterward?"

She had shrunk in advance from this question, and she could not answer
it at once. To gain t