“And it explains a lot of other things,” Wise said, thoughtfully. “Well, Mrs Briggs, we’ll be going now. As to this matter, I think I can say, if you’ll continue to keep it secret, we will do the same, at least for the present. Did you never tell anybody? Not even your husband?”
“I never did. It was the only secret I ever kept from my husband, he’s dead now this seven year, poor man,—but I felt I couldn’t tell him. It wasn’t my secret. When I took Mr Varian’s money, I promised never to tell about the child. And I kept my word. Until now,” she added, and Wise said,
“You had to tell now, Mrs Briggs, if you hadn’t told willingly and frankly, I could have brought the law to bear on your decision.”
“That’s what I thought, sir. Please tell me of the child? Is she now a fine girl?”
Wise realized that up in this far away hamlet the news of Betty Varian’s disappearance had not become known, so he merely said,
“I’ve never seen her, but I’m told she is a fine and lovely girl. Her mother is a charming woman.”
“I’m glad you say so, sir, for though I was sorry for her, she was a terror for peevishness and fretting. Yet, after she got the little girl she seemed transformed, she was that happy and content.”
Back to the inn went Pennington Wise and Zizi.
“The most astonishing revelation I ever heard,” was Wise’s comment, as he closed the door of Zizi’s sitting room and sat down to talk it over.
“Where do you come out?”