"That 'if' concerns you," he now declared, coming back to his wife and to his troubles at the same instant.

"Explain the mystery which seems likely to undo me.

Why do you sit there bowed under my accusations?
Why should Henry Packard's wife cry for mercy, to any man?
Because those damnable accusations are true?
Because you have a secret in your past and this man knows it ?" Slowly she rose, slowly she met his eyes, and even he started back at her pallor and the drawn misery in her face.

But she did not speak.
Instead of that she simply reached out and laid her hand on Mr.Steele's arm, drooping almost to the ground as she did so.

"Mercy!" she suddenly wailed, but this time to the man who had so relentlessly accused her.
The effect was appalling.