`Richard, I didn't know we were going to kiss each other till we did!'

`How many times?'

`A good many. I don't know. I am horrified to look back on it, and the least I can do after it is to come to you like this.'

`Come - this is pretty bad, after what I've done! Anything else to confess?'

`No.' She had been intending to say: `I called him my darling love.' But, as a contrite woman always keeps back a little, that portion of the scene remained untold. She went on: `I am never going to see him any more. He spoke of some things of the past: and it overcame me. He spoke of - the children. But, as I have said, I am glad - almost glad I mean - that they are dead, Richard. It blots out all that life of mine!'

`Well - about not seeing him again any more. Come - you really mean this?' There was something in Phillotson's tone now which seemed to show that his three months of remarriage with Sue had somehow not been so satisfactory as his magnanimity or amative patience had anticipated.

`Yes, yes!'

`Perhaps you'll swear it on the New Testament?'

`I will.'

He went back to the room and brought out a little brown Testament. `Now then: So help you God!'

She swore.

`Very good!'

`Now I supplicate you, Richard, to whom I belong, and whom I wish to honour and obey, as I vowed, to let me in.'

`Think it over well. You know what it means. Having you back in the house was one thing - this another. So think again.'

`I have thought - I wish this!'

`That's a complaisant spirit - and perhaps you are right. With a lover hanging about, a half-marriage should be completed. But I repeat my reminder this third and last time.'

`It is my wish! ... O God!'

`What did you say `O God' for?'

`I don't know!'

`Yes you do! But ...' He gloomily considered her thin and fragile form a moment longer as she crouched before him in her night-clothes. `Well, I thought it might end like this,' he said presently. `I owe you nothing, after these signs; but I'll take you in at your word, and forgive you.'

He put his arm round her to lift her up. Sue started back.

`What's the matter?' he asked, speaking for the first time sternly. `You shrink from me again? - just as formerly!'

`No, Richard - I - I - was not thinking - - '