She stood before him with grave eyes meeting his. “Why should I be angry?” she said. “I think it was—rather brave of you.”
“Brave!” he echoed, and his lips twisted a little as though they wanted to sneer. “Would you say that of the cur that takes refuge behind your skirt? No, wait! I’m not here to torment you with that sort of platitudes. It doesn’t matter what you think of me. I don’t count. You’ll never see me again after this show is over. I promise you that. I’ve led you a devil’s dance, but I’m nearly done. There’s only one figure left, and you’ve got to step that whether you want to or not.”
“What do you mean?” Frances said, arrested rather by the recklessness of his speech than by the words he spoke.
“I’ll tell you,” said Rotherby. “It’ll be something of a shock, I warn you. But you have pluck enough for a dozen. First then, I’ve got to own up to a lie. You remember that affair at Tetherstones—when I was shot waiting for you?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “Yes.” She knew what was coming, yet she waited for it with an odd breathlessness. Somehow so much seemed to hang upon it.
“It was not Arthur Dermot who fired that shot,” Rotherby said. “It was the old man, and he meant murder too. But Arthur and Oliver were both there and that put him off. They turned up unexpectedly from different directions and chased him, but somehow he got away. I bolted—with my usual bravery.” Again she saw his twisted smile. He went on, scarcely pausing. “I didn’t tell you the truth for several reasons. I daresay you can guess what they were. Arthur is sane enough except when he sees red. But the old man—well, the old man is a raving lunatic at times, though he has his lucid intervals, I believe. He ought to be shut up of course, but his wife has never been able to face it. Some women are like that. You would be. They keep him shut up when he goes off the rails. I believe he has only got one serious mania, and that is to kill me. So it has been fairly easy to guard against that until lately. It was poor Nan’s trouble that sent him off his head in the first place, but if I had kept out of the way he would probably have remained harmless. You understand that, do you?”
“I am beginning to understand—many things,” Frances said. But she could not speak of little Ruth to him.
He also seemed glad to pass on. “Well we needn’t discuss that any further. He got wind of my coming, and he did his best to out me. He didn’t succeed—perhaps fortunately, perhaps otherwise. Now to come to Arthur! He would have left me alone if it hadn’t been for you. You realize that, of course?”
“Oh yes,” Frances said, wondering with a faint impatience why he harped upon the matter.
He saw the wonder and grimly smiled at it. “I realized that too,” he said. “It has simplified matters considerably. I told you I would play the game. Well, I’ve played it. After I had got down here yesterday and seen the Bishop, I wrote to Arthur. I told him the whole truth from beginning to end. He hasn’t any illusions left by this time concerning you—or me either.”