I said not a word more and he left us, and I heard the front door close on him. Then I turned to Zyp with an agony I could not control, and she was crooning over her baby.
“Zyp, I oughtn’t to say it, I know. But—oh, Zyp! I thought all these years you might be waiting for me.”
“Hush, Renny! You wrote so seldom, and—and I was a changeling, you know, and longed for light and pleasure. And he seemed to promise them—he was so beautiful, and so loving when he chose.”
“And you married him?”
“Dad wouldn’t hear of it. Sometimes I think, Renny, he was your champion—dad, I mean—and wanted to keep me for you; and the very suspicion made me rebellious. And in the end, we were married at a registrar’s office, there in Winton, unknown to anybody.”
“How long ago was that?”
“It was last February and sometime in August dad found it out and there was a scene. So Jason brought me to London.”
“Why, what was he doing to keep a wife?”
“I know nothing about that. Such things never enter my head, I think. He always seemed to have money. Perhaps dad gave it to him. He was afraid of Jason, I’m sure.”
“Zyp, why didn’t you ever—why did none of you ever write to me about this?”