"But you told my husband that you were not a married man! Didn't he, Mildred?"
The situation was so unexpected that I felt myself like a bird swinging in a cage. Nothing was steady; everything around me seemed to whirl. Then I heard Mildred speaking as if her voice reached me through a poor connection on a telephone.
"Oh, that didn't matter. I knew he was married all along—at least I was pretty sure of it. What difference could it make to us?
"It made the difference," Mrs. Averill drawled, peevishly, "that we believed him."
But Mrs. Mountney intervened, waving the others aside with a motion of the arm.
"Wait!" She looked at me again across the carpet. "If you married a descendant of Jasper Soames then it was Violet Torrance."
The mist that had hitherto enshrined two flaming eyes seemed to part as if torn by-lightning. The figure disclosed was not static like that of Jasper Soames, but alive as the sky is a ive in a storm. It was that of my wife as I had last seen her. My mind resumed its action at the point where its memory of Vio had been shut ott.
"And," Mrs. Mountney went on, pressing her facts, "you're Billy Harrowby."
I could only bend my head in assent.
"That's my name."