"Not marry her! My dear boy, he must! It's his last chance, and he knows it! He's up to his neck in debt and borrowed money. As a matter of fact, I shouldn't be at all surprised if Tubby Clare's little widow hasn't already changed her name for Raymond Ashton's."
Outside in the road Micky suddenly started up the engine of his car. The dull throb, throb, came faintly to Esther as she sat there as motionless as if she had been carved in stone.
The little vibrant noise sounded like the beating of some one's heart, she thought dully; she found herself listening to it subconsciously.
The two men behind her had moved out to the doorway; she could still hear them talking and laughing together. Something within her urged her to get up and follow them to tell them that she had heard what they said, to tell them that it was all a lie--a shameful lie. But she could not move.
She told herself that if she kept quite still for a few moments she would wake and find that she had just dreamed it all. She stared hard into the glowing fire, trying to believe that it was all part of her dream, that it was not real warmth which she felt on her face at all, that those leaping flames were only pictures of her imagination, that even if she thrust her hand into them they would not burn her, but would just melt away into the silence around like phantoms.
The phantom lover! June's half-mocking words beat dully against her brain. June had always hated Raymond; she would be glad if this thing were true.
She suddenly realised that she was shivering in every limb. With an effort she dragged her chair closer to the fire. She put out her hands to the flames....
"Good heavens! what are you doing?" said Micky's voice at her shoulder. She had not heard him come into the room; it was only when he bent and caught her hand back from the flames that she realised what she had been going to do. She looked up at him with a sick smile.
"I thought it wouldn't burn," she said stupidly.
A flash of alarm crept into his eyes; she looked so white.
He kept her hand in his holding it firmly.
There was something so kind in his voice that for a moment she felt as if she would have given her soul to have been able to lean her head against his shoulder and sob out the truth; all she had just heard and all the miserable hope and fear that had tortured her for the past few weeks.