She remembered now, with a swiftly banished pang of jealousy, that this girl had loved him.
Her thought sped back to a summer evening nearly a year ago, when it had seemed to her that she had surprised her friend's secret.
"What do you mean, Mary?" she demanded courageously. "What have I to be forgiven? Don't despise me; don't, for Heaven's sake, don't play with me! I am all in the dark! Are you accusing me? Do you think because I say nothing that I have forgotten—that I can forget? Is it something about—him?"
Mary cast a rapid glance at her.
"Are you afraid of his name, then?"
Eve dropped her hands despairingly.
"Ah, you do! You are playing with me! About Philip Rainham, then! For Heaven's sake speak! Do you know what I only guess—that he was innocent? For God's sake say it!"
It was Mary's turn to look bewildered, to feel penitent. She began to recognise that there were greater depths in Eve's nature than she had suspected, that her indifference might, after all, prove to have been merely a mask.
"You guess—innocent—don't you know, then?"
"Nothing, nothing! I only suspect—believe! I have been groping alone in the darkness—and yet I do know! He was innocent—he played a part?"