"He never did tell."
"Well, ye shall read the newspaper paragraphs yerself—American papers, mind ye!—for he never sent me the English ones, and I got what I got through his friends. I've columns cut out. And with them there's the praise of the trench machine, and the new kind of steel—Radium steel, he calls it—that they say will make him a millionaire in a year or two."
"A millionaire!" echoed Marise. "I thought he was poor!"
"Poor! Ye thought that—yet ye married him—you, who could get anyone ye liked, from Princes of the Blood down to Cotton Kings! You darlin'! Well, ye'll have yer reward. The boy is not poor. He's rich—what anybody would call rich."
"Then why——" Marise burst out, and stopped herself. If she hadn't bitten back the words, they would have tumbled out: "Why did he marry me?"
She felt very small in spirit and mean of soul compared with humble Mothereen, whose faith and loyalty had bridged the dark years with gold.
Why had a man brought up by Mothereen wanted to play the dummy hand in this ridiculous game of marriage?