"You ought to have come and told me yourself!" she said.
"I had no opportunity," he reminded her. "I left London the morning after--it happened--and I returned last night."
"Why not?" he asked. "Has mine been such a successful life, do you think, that you need grudge me a little happiness towards its close?"
"Bosh!" she answered. "You are only forty-six. You are a young man still."
"I had forgotten my years," he declared. "I only know that I am tired."
"You look it," she remarked. "I must say that there is very little of the triumphant suitor about you. You work too hard, Lawrence."
"If I do," he asked, with a note of fierceness in his tone, "whose fault is it? I was almost happy at Blakely. I had almost learned to forget. It was you who dragged me out again. You were not satisfied with half of my income; you were always in debt, always wanting more money. Then Borrowdean made use of you. He wanted me back into politics, you wanted more money for your follies and extravagances. Back I had to come into harness. Blanche, I've tried to do my duty to you, but there is a limit. I owed you a comfortable place in life, and I have tried to see that you have it. I have never refused anything you have asked me, I have never mentioned the sacrifices which I have been forced to make. But there is a limit. I draw it here. I will not suffer any interference between the Duchess of Lenchester and myself!"
Blanche Phillimore rose slowly to her feet. He was used to her fits of passion, but there was no sign of anything of the sort in her face. She was agitated, but in some new way. Her words were an attack, but her manner suggested rather an appeal. Her large, fine eyes, her one perfectly natural feature, were soft and luminous. They seemed somehow to transfigure her face. To him it seemed like the foolish, handsome woman of fifteen years ago who had suddenly come to life again.
"You owed me--a comfortable place in life, Lawrence! Thank--you. You have paid the debt very well. You owed me--a respectable guardianship; you paid that, too. Thank you again. Now tell me, do you owe me nothing else?"
"I owed you one debt," he said, gravely, "which neither I nor any other man who incurs it can ever discharge."