still, and
worse than useless to draw back.

"I am sorry to disappoint you," I answered. "It is impossible for me (as
I told you at Ramsgate) to be ready to sail at a moment's notice. I want
time."

"What for?"

Not only his tone, but his look, when he put that second question,
jarred on every nerve in me. He roused in my mind--I can't tell how or
why--an angry sense of the indignity that he had put upon his wife in
marrying her under a false name. Fearing that I should answer rashly,
that I should say something which my better sense might regret, if I
spoke at that moment, I said nothing. Women alone can estimate what it
cost me to be silent. And men alone can understand how irritating my
silence must have been to my husband.

"You want time?" he repeated. "I ask you again--what for?"

My self-control, pushed to its extremest limits, failed me. The rash
reply flew out of my lips, like a bird set free from a cage.

"I want time," I said, "to accustom myself to my right name."

He suddenly stepped up to me with a dark look.

"What do you mean by your 'right name?'"

"Surely you know," I answered. "I once thought I was Mrs. Woodville. I
have now discovered that I am Mrs. Macallan."

He started back at the sound of his own name as if I had struck him--he
started back, and turned so deadly pale that I feared he was going to
drop at my feet in a swoon. Oh, my tongue! my tongue! Why had I not
controlled my miserable, mischievous woman's tongue!

"I didn't mean to alarm you, Eustace," I said. "I spoke at random. Pray
forgive me."

He waved his hand impatiently, as if my penitent words were tangible
things--ruffling, worrying things, like flies in summer--which he was
putting away from him.

"What else have you discovered?" he asked, in low, stern tones.

"Nothing, Eustace."

"Nothing?" He paused as he repeated the word, and passed his hand over
his forehead in a weary way. "Nothing, of course," he resumed, speaking
to himself, "or she would not be here." He paused once more, and looked
at me searchingly. "Don't say again what you said just now," he went on.
"For your own sake, Valeria, as well as for mine." He dropped into the
nearest chair, and said no more.

I certainly heard the warning; but the only words which really produced
an impression on my mind were the words preceding it, which he had
spoken to himself. He had said: "Nothing, of course, _or she could not
be here."_ If I had found out some other