"I see," Bernard said again.
Again there fell a silence between them. Everard sat bowed, his head on his hand. The awful pallor was passing, but the stricken look remained.
Bernard spoke at last. "You have no idea what became of him?"
"Not the faintest. He went. That was all that concerned me." Grimly, without lifting his head, he made answer. "You know the rest—or you can guess. Then you came, and told me that the woman—Dacre's wife—died before his marriage to Stella. I've been in hell ever since."
"I wish to Heaven I'd stopped away!" Bernard exclaimed with sudden vehemence.
Everard shifted his position slightly to glance at him. "Don't wish that!" he said. "After all, it would probably have come out somehow."
"And—Stella?" Bernard spoke with hesitation, as if uncertain of his ground. "What does she think? How much does she know?"
"She thinks like the rest. She thinks I murdered the hound. And I'd rather she thought that," there was dogged suffering in Everard's voice, "than suspected the truth."
"You think—" Bernard still spoke with slight hesitation—"that will hurt her less?"
"Yes." There was stubborn conviction in the reply. Everard slowly straightened himself and faced his brother squarely. "There is—the child," he said.