That storm and that clearing have never left my memory. As the last lingering shred of cloud drifted away, leaving the face of the moon quite clear, I found courage to look once more towards the bed.
There was a change there. She lay, not as before, with her features quite concealed, but with her face exposed save where the loose curls had forced their way across her cheeks and forehead. The coverlet, drawn close under her chin, hung smooth and decent to the floor, and across it lay stretched one white arm, upon the hand of which shone the wedding-ring which Leighton Gillespie had taken from her neck and placed there.
XXX
AN UNEXPECTED ALLY
hat night was a busy one for me; nevertheless I found time to send a message to Hope, in which I begged her to read no papers till she saw me, and, if possible, to keep herself in her own room. To these hurried words I added the comforting assurance that the news I had to bring her would repay her for this display of self-control, and that I would not keep her waiting any longer than was necessary. But it was fully ten o'clock before I was able to keep this promise, and I found her looking pale and worn.
"I have obeyed you," she said, with an attempt at smiling as pitiful as it was ineffectual. "What has happened? Why did you not want me to see the papers or talk with Mrs. Penrhyn?"
"Because I wished to be the first to tell you the secret of Leighton Gillespie's life. It was not what was suggested to you by the discrepancies you observed between his character and life. He is sane as any man, but—" it was hard to proceed, with those eyes of unspeakable longing looking straight into mine—"but he has had great sorrows to bear, great suspenses to endure, a deception to keep up, not altogether justifiable, perhaps, but yet one that was not without some excuse. His wife—Did you ever see his wife?"