Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/530

Rh “You can see I am not wanted here,” Wyant threw in with a sneer.

Amherst remained silent for a brief space; then he turned his eyes once more to his wife.

Justine lifted her face: it looked small and spent, like an extinguished taper.

“It’s true,” she said.

“True?”

“I did give … an overdose … intentionally, when I knew there was no hope, and when the surgeons said she might go on suffering. She was very strong … and I couldn’t bear it … you couldn’t have borne it.…”

There was another silence; then she went on in a stronger voice, looking straight at her husband: “And now will you send this man away?”

Amherst glanced at Wyant without moving. “Go,” he said curtly.

Wyant, instead, moved a step nearer. “Just a minute, please. It’s only fair to hear my side. Your wife says there was no hope; yet the day before she … gave the dose, Dr. Garford told her in my presence that Mrs. Amherst might live.”

Again Amherst’s eyes addressed themselves slowly to Justine; and she forced her lips to articulate an answer.

“Dr. Garford said … one could never tell … but [ 514 ]