“I am not sure that I follow you,” Valentine said, curbing a certain inclination to agitation. “I was given to understand you were very happy.”
“I hardly know who could have given you that statement,” Kestridge said slowly. “I have never been happy with my wife, never. I never cared for Winnie. She was the one of the family I never cared about.”
“And yet you married her!” Valentine said, very coldly, and with a great deal of reproach. He resented this kind of confidence.
“And yet I married her, as you say,” Hubert Kestridge repeated, and then he looked up, “or rather, she married me. Ambleton, let me speak out to you! I know you to be the soul of honor. I want you to judge, and tell me if I am doing right or wrong.”
“The duty is too solemn,” Valentine began, but the other went rushing into speech.
“We married—put the blame on whom you will—we married; yes, but my heart was never given in marriage. I had given it long before. Have you ever seen Polly?” he queried, suddenly. “It is Polly I love—Polly I have loved from the first!”
“Take care, man!” Valentine said, in a stifled sort of way. By what chance did this thing come to him now?
“Oh! I do no harm by saying this to you,” Hubert said, half recklessly. “You are the sort of friend one trusts to death. Yes, it is Polly I have loved, and yet I married Winnie. How did it come about? Oh! it was easy enough for my wife to twist and turn and maneuver things so that she made me believe I was hateful to Polly and dear to herself. I have her own word for this. We have quarreled many times, but never as we quarreled last night. Things were put clearly enough between us then. Winnie has a keen tongue and uses it well. She left me little that was pleasant to remember, I can tell you, for no man cares to acknowledge himself a fool, and this is what she proved me to be. After all, Ambleton, we are fools in a clever woman’s hands! Winnie twisted me just as she willed. It was the hour of their poverty. She hates poverty. I was available as a means of escape from her home life. What was easier than to throw dust in my eyes? Polly, strange, lovely little creature as she is, was hard and cold to me. She refused me mere friendship. She slighted me on every occasion. She lent strong color to all Winnie told me, and yet sure I ought to have understood her,” the man said here, bitterly enough. “She is made of different stuff to either of her sisters. The very thing that drew Winnie to me kept Polly away. Had she grown rich instead of poor, I might—who can tell?—have stood in a very different position to what I am now.”
There was silence a moment, between them, and then Valentine spoke.
“Do you do yourself any good by saying all this, Kestridge?” he asked, gently enough, though in truth, he was not utterly in sympathy with Hubert.