his
companion.

"Yes, exactly," he said. "As I expected, the day of lying being over,
you as good as own it an outrage to your taste, and your affections,
that so frightful a thing, as I am, should venture to range itself
alongside your memories of your husband. Out of your own mouth are you
judged, my dear mother. And, if I am thus to you, upon whom, after all,
I have some natural claim, what must I be to others? Think of it! What
indeed?"

Katherine made no attempt to answer. Perception of the grain of truth
which seasoned the vast, the glaring, injustice of his accusations
unnerved her. His speech was ingeniously cruel. His humour such, that
it was vain to protest. And the hopelessness of it all affected her to
the point of physical weakness. She moved across the room, intending to
gain the door and go, for it seemed to her the limit of her powers of
endurance had been reached. But her strength would not carry her so
far. She stumbled on the upturned corner of the shining, tiger-skin
rug, recovered herself trembling, and laid hold of the high, narrow,
marble shelf of the chimneypiece for support. She must rest a little
lest her strength should wholly desert her, and she should fall before
reaching the door.

Behind her, within the circle of lamplight, Richard remained, still
sorting, tearing, flinging away that which remained of the pile of
papers. This deft, persistent activity of his, in its mixture of
purpose and abstraction was agitating--seeming, to Katherine's
listening ears, as though it might go on endlessly, until not only
these waste papers, but all and everything within his reach, things
spiritual, things of the heart, duties, obligations, gracious and
tender courtesies, as well as things merely material, might be thus
relentlessly scrutinised, judged worthless, rent asunder and cast
forth. What would be spared she wondered, what left? And when the work
of destruction was completed, what would follow next?--Bracing herself,
she turned, purposing to close the interview by some brief pleading of
indisposition and to escape. But, as she did so, the sound of tearing
ceased. Richard slipped down from his place at the writing-table, and
shuffling across the room, flung himself down in the long, low armchair
on the opposite side of the fireplace.

"I don't want to detain you for an unreasonable length of time,
mother," he said. "We understand each other in the main, I think, and
that without subterfuge or s