She felt the canoe swerve at Dick's start, and she saw his eyes stare.
"Good God!" he said. Then, "Do you realise what you are saying?"
Jennifer had not told the first deliberate lie of her life without realising it.
"How much do you expect me to bear?" she cried in sudden passion. "If you want him take him. Take him, and let me be free—free of him and of you and of everyone. Oh, I'm tired of it all. I'm tired."
There was enough truth in this to put the real ring in her voice. Dick looked at her with his eyes hard and sombre. Then he turned his head with a slight shrug of his shoulders and looked out over the dark water. He was utterly stunned; utterly disgusted. This was Jennifer! This was the woman for whose sake he had so deeply regretted his past life! The bitter humour of his nature woke again. It was only the old game which life always played him. Always there was a worm within the apple; and always he had to bite to find it out; and always the mouthful sickened him. But never as now. Never as now; because he loved her and he had reverenced her. He looked at her again. She was leaning forward with her eyes lit and eager and her lips half-drawn back from the little sharp teeth.
"Thank you," he said. "I see that I have given myself a great deal of extra trouble. I might as well have come to you for the whole affair long ago. My knowledge of—women has been at fault again."
"But I wouldn't have told you until I knew that you cared for me," said Jennifer softly.
Her words turned him suddenly cold in the hot night. He picked up the paddle and drove the canoe homeward in a complete silence until the prow grounded in the squishy sand, and he sprang out into the little protesting ripples and reached his hand to her. He held it, looking down at her with the mocking contempt in face and voice.
"You deserve a kiss for that information," he said. "But you're not going to get it. You have probably sold your husband to me to-night, Mrs. Ducane, and if I buy
