.

"Even I," he said cruelly. He wanted to hurt her since she had walked
over him, metaphorically, with hobnailed boots. "India is a land of many
temptations."

"But you love me!"

"God knows I do. But I am only a very ordinary human man whose wife
prefers to live away from him in a distant land."

"Ray, you are saying that only to be cruel!"

"Because I am beginning to think you have no very real love for me."

"I love you, and no one else!"

"I have seen very little evidence of love, as I understand it. A great
many things count with you above me. The child comes first! God knows
that I have idolised you. Perhaps this is my punishment! but I
worshipped you, and today you are deliberately straining the cord that
binds us together. The strands will presently be so weak that they will
snap altogether. Then all the splicing afterwards will never restore it
to its original strength. It will be a patched-up thing--its perfection
gone. Remember, a big breach between husband and wife may be mended--but
never again is there restored what has been lost!" He lifted her chin
and kissed her cold lips roughly. "When do you mean to return? Can't you
suggest an idea of the time?"

"Whenever you can get leave to fetch me," she answered with sobbing
breath.

"I swear to God I will not do so!" he broke out. "You may stay as long
as you choose. I shall then understand how much I count with you. I
refuse to drag back an unwilling wife."

"Oh, Ray! Don't talk like that! Won't you believe that I love you?"

"I would sell my soul to believe it ... to bank all my faith on it!"

"It is true!"

"Prove it now."

"How can I?"

"Let me cancel the passage, and come back with me."

Her face fell. "I could not do that after all the arrangements have been
made. Mother will be so disappointed--besides, people will think me
mad!"

Meredith released her and turned away, a fury of jealousy at his heart.
"Ever since that night at the ruins you have become a changed being. I
tried not to think so, but, by God! you have forced me to. One might
almost imagine you are running away from Captain Dalton. Is there
anything between you?" he asked coming back to face her, white and
shaken.

Joyce burst into tears. "I don't understand what you are accusing me
of!" she sobbed, panic-stricken.

"Are you in love with that man?"

This was something tangible and Joyce was roused to an outburst of
honest indignation. "No!--no! A thousand times,