d body to attend to
Marcella's question.

"Why did I do it?" he repeated; "why--"

He broke off, pressing both his hands upon his brow. Then he suddenly
sat up and pulled himself together.

"Is that tea?" he said, touching the tray. "Will you give me some?"

Marcella went into the back kitchen and called Minta. While the boiling
water was brought and the tea was made, Wharton sat forward with his
face on his hands and saw nothing. Marcella whispered a word in Minta's
ear as she came in. The woman paused, looked at Wharton, whom she had
not recognised before in the dark--grew pale--and Marcella saw her hands
shaking as she set the tray in order. Wharton knew nothing and thought
nothing of Kurd's widow, but to Marcella the juxtaposition of the two
figures brought a wave of complex emotion.

Wharton forced himself to eat and drink, hardly speaking the while.
Then, when the tremor of sheer exhaustion had to some extent abated, he
suddenly realised who this was that was sitting opposite to him
ministering to him.

She felt his hand--his quick powerful hand--on hers.

"To _you_ I owe the whole truth--let me tell it!"

She drew herself away instinctively--but so softly that he did not
realise it. He threw himself back once more in the chair beside her--one
knee over the other, the curly head so much younger to-night than the
face beneath it supported on his arms, his eyes closed again for
rest--and plunged into the story of the _Clarion_.

It was admirably told. He had probably so rehearsed it to himself
several times already. He described his action as the result of a double
influence working upon him--the influence of his own debts and
necessities, and the influence of his growing conviction that the
maintenance of the strike had become a blunder, even a misfortune for
the people themselves.

"Then--just as I was at my wit's end, conscious besides that the paper
was on a wrong line, and must somehow be got out of it--came the
overtures from the Syndicate. I knew perfectly well I ought to have
refused them--of _course_ my whole career was risked by listening to
them. But at the same time they gave me assurances that the workpeople
would ultimately gain--they proved to me that I was helping to
extinguish the trade. As to the _money_--when a great company has to be
launched, the people who help it into being get _paid_ for it--it is
invariable--it happens every day. I like the system no more than you may
do--or Wil