There was silence between them. Broomhurst saw that she was crying; her tears fell fast on to her hands, that were clasped in her lap. Her face, he noticed, was thin and drawn.
Very gently he put his arm round her shoulder and drew her nearer to him. She made no resistance--it seemed that she did not notice the movement; and his arm dropped at his side.
"You asked me why I had come? You think it possible that three months can change one, very thoroughly, then?" he said in a cold voice.
"I not only think it possible, I have proved it," she replied wearily.
"You _did_ love me, Kathleen!" he asserted; "you never said so in words, but I know it," he added fiercely.
Her voice was very tired. "Yes--I can't help it," she answered, "it has gone--utterly."
The grey sea slowly lapped the rocks. Overhead the sharp scream of a gull cut through the stillness. It was broken again, a moment afterwards, by a short hard laugh from the man.
"Don't!" she whispered, and laid a hand swiftly on his arm. "Do you think it isn't worse for me? I wish to God I _did_ love you," she cried passionately. "Perhaps it would make me forget that to all intents and purposes I am a murderess."
Broomhurst met her wide despairing eyes with an amazement which yielded to sudden pitying comprehension.
"So that is it, my darling? You are worrying about _that_? You who were as loyal, as----"
"Don't! _don't_!" she wailed. "If you only knew; let me try to tell you--will you?" she urged pitifully. "It may be better if I tell someone--if I don't keep it all to myself, and think, and _think_."
She clasped her hands tight, with the old gesture he remembered when she was struggling for self-control, and waited a moment.
Presently she began to speak in a low hurried tone: "It began before you came. I know now what the feeling was that I was afraid to acknowledge to myself. I used to try and smother it, I used to repeat things to myself all day--poems, stupid rhymes--_anything_ to keep my thoughts quite underneath--but I--_hated_ John before you came! We had been married nearly a year then. I never loved him. Of course you are going to say: 'Why did you marry him?'" She looked drearily over the placid sea. "Why _did_ I marry him? I don't know; for the reason that hundreds of ignorant inexperienced girls marry, I suppose. My home wasn't a happy one. I was miserable, and oh,--_restless_. I wonder if men know what it feels like to be restless? Sometimes I think they can't even guess. John wanted me very badly--nobody wanted me at home particularly. There didn't seem to be any point in my life. Do you understand?... Of course being alone with him in that little camp in that silent plain"--she shuddered--"made things worse. My nerves went all to pieces. Everything he said--his voice--his accent--his walk--the way he ate--irritated me so that I longed to rush out sometimes and shriek--and go _mad_. Does it sound ridiculous to you to be driven mad by such trifles? I only know I used to get up from the table sometimes and walk up and down outside, with both hands over my mouth to keep myself quiet. And all the time I _hated_ myself--how I hated myself! I never had a word from him that wasn't gentle and tender. I believe he loved the ground I walked on. Oh, it is _awful_ to be loved like that, when you----" She drew in her breath with a sob. "I--I--it made me sick for him to come near me--to touch me." She stopped a moment.