Stella went on with greater steadiness, her eyes resolutely meeting the shrewd old eyes that watched her. "He—Everard—came between us because only a fortnight after our marriage he received the news that Ralph had a wife living in England. Perhaps I ought to tell you—though this in no way influenced him—that my marriage to Ralph was a mistake. I married him because I was unhappy, not because I loved him. I sinned, and I have been punished."
"Poor girl!" said Sir Reginald very gently.
Her eyelids quivered, but she would not suffer them to fall. "Everard sent him away from me, made him vanish completely, and then came himself to me—he was in native disguise—and told me he was dead. I suppose it was wrong of him. If so, he too has been punished. But he wanted to save my pride. I had plenty of pride in those days. It is all gone now. At least, all I have left is for him—that his honour may be vindicated. I am afraid I am telling the story very badly. Forgive me for taking so long!"
"There is no hurry," Sir Reginald answered in the same gentle voice. "And you are telling it very well."
She smiled again—her faint, sad smile. "You are very kind. It makes it much easier. You know how clever he is in native disguise. I never recognized him. I came back, as I thought, a widow. And then—it was nearly a year after—I married Everard, because I loved him. It was just before Captain Ermsted's murder. We had to come back here in a hurry because of it. Then when the summer came we had to separate. I went to Bhulwana for the birth of my baby. And while I was there, he heard that Ralph Dacre's wife had died in England only a few days before his marriage to me. That meant of course that I was not Everard's legal wife, that the baby was illegitimate. But—I was very ill at the time—he kept it from me."
"Of course he did," said Sir Reginald.
"Of course he did," said Bernard.
"Yes," she assented. "He couldn't help himself then. But he ought to have told me afterwards—when—when I began to have that horrible suspicion that everyone else had, that he had murdered Ralph Dacre."
"A difficult point," said Sir Reginald.
"I told him he was making a mistake," said Bernard.