I undertook not to try to probe your past, and I will keep my undertaking in the main; but where it impinges upon my own past I simply cannot! You say you were my first husband's close friend," added Rachel, looking her second husband more squarely than ever in the eyes.
"Was that what brought you to my trial for his murder ?" He returned her look.
"It was." "Was that what made you wish to marry me yourself ?" No answer, but his assurance coming back, as he stood looking at her under beetling eyebrows, over black arms folded across a snowy shirt.

It was the wrong moment for the old Adam's return, for Rachel had reached the point upon which she most passionately desired enlightenment.
"I want to know," she cried, "and I insist on knowing, what first put it into your head or your heart to marry me--all but convicted--" Steel held up his hand, glancing in apprehension towards the door.
"I have told you so often," he said, "and your glass tells you whenever you look into it.

I sat within a few feet of you for the inside of a week!" "But that is not true," she told him quietly; "trust a woman to know, if it were." In the white glare of the electric light he seemed for once to change color slightly.
"If you will not accept my word," he answered, "there is no more to be said." And he switched off a bunch of the lights that had beaten too fiercely upon him; but it only looked as if he was about to end the interview.
"You have admitted so many untruths in the last half hour," pursued Rachel, in a thrilling voice, "that you ought not to be hurt if I suspect you of another.

Come! Can you look me in the face and tell me that you married me for love?
No, you turn away--because you cannot! Then will you, in God's name, tell me why you did marry me ?" And she followed him with clasped hands, her beautiful eyes filled with tears, her white throat quivering with sobs, until suddenly he turned upon her as though in self-defence.
"No, I will not!" he cried.

"Since the answer I have given you, and the obvious answer, is not good enough for you, the best thing you can do is to find out for yourself." A truculent look came into Rachel's eyes, as they rested upon the smooth face so unusually agitated beneath the smooth silvery hair.
"I will!" she answered through her teeth.