And she _is_ horrid." This is carrying the war into the enemy's camp with a vengeance.
There is something in her tone that startles Rylton.

Has she heard of that old attachment?
His heart grows sick within him.

Has it come to this, then?
Is there to be concealment--deception on _his_ part?
Before his marriage he had thought nothing of his love for Marian in so far as it could touch his wife, but now--now, if she knows! But how can she know?
And besides---- Here his wrath grows warm again.

Even if she does know, how does that affect her own behaviour?
Her sin is of her own making.

_His_ sin---- Was it ever a sin?
Was it not a true, a loyal love?
And when hope of its fulfilment was denied him, when he placed a barrier between it and him, had he not been true to that barrier?
Only to-night--to-night when, maddened by the folly of this girl before him--he had let his heart stir again--had given way to the love that had swayed him for two long years and more.
"You forget yourself," says he coldly.
"Oh no, I don't," says Tita, to whom this answer sounds rather overbearing.