"Then how do you know what he's like?" she persisted. The servants had left them to their coffee. Irene came round and sat down close to her husband. "You know something, something you didn't mean me to know. What is it, Frank?"
Bowdon looked at her steadily. He had meant to tell nothing; but he had already told too much. A sudden gleam of understanding came into her eyes; her quick intuition discerned a connection between this thing and the other incident which had puzzled her.
"I believe it's something to do with that cheque Ashley Mead sent you," she said. She would not move her eyes from his face.
"I'm not at liberty to tell you anything about it. Of course I'm not going to deny that there's a secret. But I can't tell you about it, Irene."
"You would be quite safe in telling me." She rose and stood looking down on him. "You ought to tell me," she said. "You ought to tell me anything that concerns both you and Ora Pinsent."
She was amazed to say this, and he to hear it. The one point of silence, of careful silence, the one thing which neither had dared to speak of to the other, the one hidden spring which had moved the conduct of both, suddenly became a matter of speech on her lips to him. Suddenly she faced the question and demanded that he also should face it. She admitted and she claimed that what touched him and Ora Pinsent must touch her also. And he did not contest the claim.
"I must know, if—if we're to go on, Frank," she said.
"There's much less than you think," said he. "But I'll tell you. I tell you in confidence, you know. Fenning came. That's all."
Irene made no comment. That was not all; the cheque from Ashley Mead was not explained. Bowdon proceeded with his story. He told what he had to tell in short sharp sentences. "The fellow was impossible." "It was impossible to let her see him." "He was a rascal." "He drank." Pauses of silence were interspersed. "It would have killed her." "He only wanted money of her." "The idea of his going near her was intolerable." "She had forgotten what he was, or he had gone down-hill terribly."
"And the money?" asked Irene, in a low whisper. She had seated herself again, and was looking before her into the fireplace.