Chapter XIV

"Do you think he did--shoot himself?"

They continued to stand staring into each other's eyes--the width of the room between them. A red azalea on the long mahogany table, strewn with books, separated them by its fierce splash of color. The apathy of Diane's voice was not that of worn-out emotion, but of emotion which finds no adequate tones. The very way in which her inquiry ignored all other subjects between them had its poignancy.

"What do you think?"

"Oh, I suppose he did. Every one says so; then why shouldn't it be true? If it were, it would only be of a piece with all the rest."

"I reminded you last night that he had other troubles besides--besides--"

"Besides those I may have caused him."

"If you like to put it so. He might have been driven to a desperate act by loss of fortune."

"Leaving me to face poverty alone. No; I can't think so ill of him as that. If you suggest it by way of offering me consolation, you're making a mistake. Of the two, I'd rather think of him as seeking death from horror--horror of me--than from simple cowardice."

"It would be no new thing in the history of money troubles; and it would relieve you of the blame."

"To fasten it on him. I see what you mean; but I prefer not to accept that kind of absolution. If there's any consolation left to me, it's in the pride of having been the wife of an honorable man. Don't take it away from me as long as there's any other explanation possible. I see you're puzzled; but you'd have to be a wife to understand me. Accuse me of any crime you like; take it for granted that I've been guilty of it; only don't say that he deserted me in that way. Let me keep at least the comfort of his memory."

"I want you to keep all the comfort you can get, Diane. God forbid that I should take from you anything in which you find support. So far am I from that, that I come to offer you--what I have to offer."

There was a minute's silence before she replied:

"I don't know what that is."

"My name."

There was another minute's silence, during which she looked at him hardly.

"What for?"

"I should think you'd see."

"I don't. Will you be good enough to explain?"

"Is that necessary? Is this a minute in which to bandy words?"

"It's a minute in which I may be permitted to ask the meaning of your--generosity."

"It isn't generosity. I'm saying nothing new. I've come only for an answer to the question I asked you before going to South America, three months ago."

"Oh, but I thought that question had answered itself."

"Then perhaps it has--in that, whatever reply you might have given me