"You know the rest," he said, and his voice came to her oddly broken and unfamiliar. "I kept it from you. I couldn't bear the thought of your facing—that,—especially after—after the birth of—the child. Even when you found out I had tricked you in that native rig-out, I couldn't endure the thought of your knowing. I nearly killed myself that night. It seemed the only way. But Bernard stopped me. I told him the truth. He said I was wrong not to tell you. But—somehow—I couldn't."
"Oh, I wish—I wish you had," she breathed.
"Do you? Well,—I couldn't. It's hard enough to tell you now. You were so wonderful, so beautiful, and they had flung mud at you from the beginning. I thought I had made you safe, dear, instead of—dragging you down."
"Everard!" Her voice was quick and passionate. She made a sudden effort and freed one hand; but he caught it again sharply.
"No, you mustn't, Stella! I haven't finished. Wait!"
His voice compelled her; she submitted hardly knowing that she did so.
"It is over now," he said. "The fellow is dead. But, Stella,—he had found out—what I had found out. And he was on his way to you. He meant to—claim you."
She shuddered—a hard, convulsive shudder—as if some loathsome thing had touched her. "But—I would never have gone back," she said.
"No," he answered grimly, "you wouldn't. I was here, and I should have shot him. They saved me that trouble."
"You were—here!" she said.