“You can see I am not wanted here,” Wyant threw in with a sneer.
Amherst remained silent for a brief space; then he turned his eyes once more to his wife.
Justine lifted her face: it looked small and spent, like an extinguished taper.
“It’s true,” she said.
“True?”
“I did give … an overdose … intentionally, when I knew there was no hope, and when the surgeons said she might go on suffering. She was very strong … and I couldn’t bear it … you couldn’t have borne it.…”
There was another silence; then she went on in a stronger voice, looking straight at her husband: “And now will you send this man away?”
Amherst glanced at Wyant without moving. “Go,” he said curtly.
Wyant, instead, moved a step nearer. “Just a minute, please. It’s only fair to hear my side. Your wife says there was no hope; yet the day before she … gave the dose, Dr. Garford told her in my presence that Mrs. Amherst might live.”
Again Amherst’s eyes addressed themselves slowly to Justine; and she forced her lips to articulate an answer.
“Dr. Garford said … one could never tell … but
[ 514 ]
