He spoke icily and deliberately, and his words had the desired effect. Mrs. Sinclair's eyes dilated, and, although she retained her self-command, her bosom rose and fell quickly, betraying the emotion within her, and the emotion was fear. Melville was satisfied. He turned to her with a pleasant, sympathetic smile which might have inspired confidence in the heart of the most suspicious.
"Tell me all about it, Lavender," he said gently. "Naked truth is always a little bit shocking. I suppose that is why you only get it in savage countries. But it is the naked truth that you have committed bigamy, and it looks to me uncommonly as if you contemplated doing it again. Tell me all about it. I don't suppose you have one disinterested adviser among all the people you know, and this is certainly a case where two heads are better than one. I won't give you away. What are the facts?"
His frankness completely took her in, as completely as his definition of her offence had satisfied her. She sat down in a chair, nervously beating a tattoo upon its arms with her plump fingers, and every now and then stealing a glance at Melville from underneath her lashes.
"I can't believe you are right," she said, "but perhaps I may as well tell you what did happen. I know I can trust you if—if I was wrong."
"Implicitly," Melville murmured.
"Well," she said hesitatingly, punctuating her story with little pauses as if in doubt how much detail to fill in. "I was very young and—and pretty, and desperately poor when I met your uncle, and he was—rather old, and well-to-do and very kind. And I married him. I thought everything would be comfortable, don't you know. But I couldn't stand it. He wanted to have me educated, and I wanted to go about and see life. It was like trying to boil a tea-kettle over a volcano. We had most frightful quarrels, and very soon I made up my mind to leave him. And one day I just walked out of the house and never went back."
The way she summarised what must have been a tragedy was pathetic, and Melville was able to imagine what that home must have been like when it was the theatre of such a conflict between passionate youth and determined middle age.
"Where did you go to?" he asked.
"A girl I knew had lately married, and I went to her. Her husband was manager of an old-fashioned hotel on the South Coast, and they gave me a home. I was useful to them, so there was no obligation on either side. I stayed there a long time, and it was there that I met Mr. Sinclair."
"Did you never hear of Sir Geoffrey?"