THE TOUCHSTONE
of her love for Flamel would have hurt him less, would have rendered her less remote. "You knew—you knew—" he repeated; and suddenly his anguish gathered voice. "My God!" he cried, "you suspected it first, you say—and then you knew it—this damnable, this accursed thing; you knew it months ago—it's months since I put that paper in your way—and yet you've done nothing, you've said nothing, you've made no sign, you've lived alongside of me as if it had made no difference—no difference in either of our lives. What are you made of, I wonder? Don't you see the hideous ignominy of it? Don't you see how you've shared in my disgrace? Or haven't you any sense of shame?"
He preserved sufficient lucidity, as the words poured from him, to see how fatally they invited her derision; but something told him they had both passed beyond the phase of obvious retaliations, and that if any chord in her responded it would not be that of scorn.
He was right. She rose slowly and moved toward him.
[ 142 ]
