“Why was the case to be undefended?” said Flora steadily.
“Why—why, don’t you see, when it all came to a crisis, I told David how utterly wretched my whole life was, and how I couldn’t bear it and should kill myself, and we had to talk things over, and see what could be done with Fred, who was like a madman. And then it all came out—I mean David said I was the only woman he could ever care for, and if I was free, wouldn’t I marry him, and let him try to make up to me for everything.”
“Why was the case to be undefended?”
“It would make less of a scandal if it was all done quietly. I—I didn’t feel I could face the other.”
In the truth of that last assertion, Flora could believe absolutely.
“I think I know the rest,” she said. “David was going to send in his papers, and come home to England as soon as possible after you and Major Carey, and you’d promised to marry him when the decree had been made absolute.”
“How do you know those legal terms?” said Mrs. Carey, pouting like a child that is trying to show displeasure.
Flora did not pursue the irrelevance. She was following a chain of thought in her own mind.
“David was in love with this woman. Otherwise he wouldn’t have written and asked me to do anything I could for her. As for leaving the case undefended—well, they probably hadn’t got a defence to put up. He meant to marry her—probably wanted to marry her. Besides he’d have felt that he owed it to her. And though he was afraid of Father, and very unhappy about sending in his papers, and though he may have had glimpses of what she really is—David wasn’t the sort to let her down. He didn’t kill himself.”
The certainty came to Flora with a rush of relief so profound that she could almost have thanked little Mrs. Carey for unwittingly bringing her to it.