“I much prefer it there,” he assured her.
They sat before an open window, looking out upon some elm trees in the boughs of which town sparrows twittered, and with a background of roofs and chimneys. Margaret's coffee was untasted, even her cigarette lay unlit by her side. There was a touch of the old horror upon her face. The fingers which he drew into his were as cold as ice.
“You must have wondered sometimes,” she began, “why I ever married Oliver Hilditch.”
“You were very young,” he reminded her, with a little shiver, “and very inexperienced. I suppose he appealed to you in some way or another.”
“It wasn't that,” she replied. “He came to visit, me at Eastbourne, and he certainly knew all the tricks of making himself attractive and agreeable. But he never won my heart—he never even seriously took my fancy. I married him because I believed that by doing so I was obeying my father's wishes.”
“Where was your father at the time, then?” Francis asked.
“In South America. Oliver Hilditch was nothing more than a discharged employé of his, discharged for dishonesty. He had to leave South America; within a week to escape prosecution, and on the way to Europe he concocted the plot which very nearly ruined my life. He forged a letter from my father, begging me, if I found it in any way possible, to listen to Oliver Hilditch's proposals, and hinting guardedly at a very serious financial crisis which it was in his power to avert. It never occurred to me or to my chaperon to question his bona fides. He had lived under the same roof as my father, and knew all the intimate details of his life. He was very clever and I suppose I was a fool. I remember thinking I was doing quite a heroic action when I went to the registrar with him. What it led to you know.”
There was a moment's throbbing silence. Francis, notwithstanding his deep pity, was conscious of an overwhelming sensation of relief. She had never cared for Oliver Hilditch! She had never pretended to! He put the thought into words.
“You never cared for him, then?”
“I tried to,” she replied simply, “but I found it impossible. Within a week of our marriage I hated him.”