Part 47 (1/2)

He glanced at the superscription and gave it back. ”It is not for me,”

he said, and M. Giraud went away from the terrace. Tony turned back to his wife. His mind was full of a comparison between the ways in which he and she had each spent the years of absence. For him they had been years of endeavour, persisted in through failure and perplexity until success, but for her, was reached. And how had Millie spent them? He looked at her sternly, and she said again in a faltering voice--

”I am innocent, Tony.”

And he replied--

”Could you have said as much to-morrow had I not come back to-night?”

Millie had no answer to that question--she attempted none; and it was even at that moment counted to her credit by her husband. She stood silent for a while, and only the murmur of the sea breaking upon the beach filled the room. A light wind breathed through the open window, cool and fragrant, and made the shaded candles flicker upon the table.

Millie had her one poor excuse to offer, and she pleaded it humbly.

”I thought that you had ceased to care what became of me,” she said.

Tony looked sharply at her. She was sincere--surely she was sincere.

”You thought that?” he exclaimed; and he replaced her chair at the table. ”Sit down here! Let me understand! You thought that I had ceased to care for you? When I ceased to write, I suppose?”

Millie shook her head.

”Before that?”

Tony dropped into the chair on which Callon had been sitting.

”Before that?” he exclaimed in perplexity. ”When? Tell me!”

Millie sat over against him at the table.

”Do you remember the evening when you first told me that you had made up your mind to go away and make a home for both of us? It was on that evening. You gave your reason for going away. We had begun to quarrel--we were drifting apart.”

”I remember,” said Tony; ”but we had not ceased to care then, neither you nor I. It was just because I feared that at some time we might cease to care that I was resolved to go away.”

”Ah,” said Millie; ”but already the change had begun. Yes, yes! Things winch you thought you never could remember without a thrill you remembered already with indifference--you remembered them without being any longer moved or touched by the a.s.sociations which they once had had. I recollect the very words you used. I sat as still as could be while you spoke them; but I never forgot them, Tony. There was a particular instance which you mentioned--a song----” And suddenly Tony laughed; but he laughed harshly, and there was no look of amus.e.m.e.nt on his face. Millie stared at him in surprise, but he did not explain, and she went on with her argument.

”So when you ceased to write I was: still more convinced that you had reaped to care. When you remained away after your father had died I was yet more sure.”

Tony leaned across the white table-cloth with its glittering silver, and fixed his eyes on her.

”I will tell you why I ceased to write. Every letter which you wrote to me when I was in New York was more contemptuous than the letter which had preceded it. I had failed, and you despised me for my failure. I had allowed myself to be tricked out of your money----” And upon that Millie interrupted him--

”Oh no!” she cried; ”you must not say that I despised you for that.

No! That is not fair. I never thought of the money. I offered you what was left.”

Tony had put himself in the wrong here. He recognised his mistake, he accepted Millie's correction.

”Yes, that is true,” he said; ”you offered me all that was left--but you offered it contemptuously; you had no shadow of belief that I would use it to advantage--you had no faith in me at all. In your eyes I was no good. Mind, I don't blame you. You were justified, no doubt.

I had set out to make a home for you, as many a man has done for his wife. Only where they had succeeded I had failed. If I thought anything at all----” he said, with an air of hesitation.

”Well?” asked Millie.