“I tell you, Winifred, I saw them together,” we heard one voice in the summer-house say.
Instantly I recognized it as that of Irene Maddox. It needed no clairvoyancy to tell precisely of whom she was talking. I wondered whether she was trying to vent her grudge against Paquita at the expense of Shelby and Winifred. At least I could fancy how Shelby would bless his sister-in-law as a trouble-maker, if he knew.
“I can’t believe that you are right,” returned the other voice, and it was plainly that of Winifred.
There was a quiver of emotion in it, as though Winifred were striving hard to convince herself that something she had heard was not true.
“I can’t help it,” replied Mrs. Maddox. “That is what I used to think—once—that it couldn’t be so. But you do not know that woman—nor men, either.”
She made the last remark with unconcealed bitterness. I could not help feeling sorry for her in the misfortune in which her own life with Maddox had ended. Yet it did not seem right that she should poison all romance. Still, I reflected, what, after all, did I really know, and why should I rise to the defense of Shelby? Better, far, that Winifred should learn now than to learn when it was too late.
“I have been watching her,” pursued Irene. “I found that I could not trust any man where that woman was concerned. I wish I had never trusted any.”
“I cannot believe that Shelby would deliberately deceive me,” persisted Winifred.
Irene Maddox laughed, hollowly. “Yet you know what we discovered this afternoon,” she pressed. “Why, I cannot even be sure that that detective, Kennedy, may not be working against me. And as for that lawyer of my husband’s, Hastings, I don’t know whether I detest him more than I fear him. Let me warn you to be careful of him, too. Remember, I have been observing for a long time. I don’t trust him, or any other lawyer. You never can tell how far they may be concerned in anything.”
There was a peculiar piquancy to the innuendo. Evidently Irene Maddox suspected Hastings of much. And again I was forced to ask myself, what did I really so far know?