For Chris was securely locked in a little room at the top of the house that had been her childhood's bedroom, and here with blanched face and hands that shook she was reading and reading again the letter that had given rise to so much discussion.
The handwriting was cramped and erratic, wholly unfamiliar, barely decipherable; but she had mastered the contents with tragic dexterity. Her understanding had leaped to the words.
* * * * *
"MY DEAR MRS. MORDAUNT," so went the letter, "You have probably forgotten my existence by this time, and it is with the utmost humility that I venture to recall it to your memory. For myself, it will always be a lasting pleasure to have met you again, and the fact that I share with you a secret of other days cannot but prove a bond between us. That secret I am prepared to guard faithfully, since—apparently—it is of value, if you on your part are ready to purchase my discretion with that of which all have need, but of which I temporarily am unhappily deficient. Briefly, madame, for the sum of five hundred pounds I will undertake that the episode of Valpré shall be consigned to oblivion so far as I am concerned. Otherwise, the strict husband may hear more than you have considered it convenient to tell him.
"Yours, with many compliments,
GUILLAUME RODOLPHE."
CHAPTER X
A WARNING VOICE
Five hundred pounds! Five hundred pounds! It represented her year's income to Chris.
All night long she lay wide-eyed and still, facing her problem with a quaking heart. It was like a suffocating weight upon her, crushing her down. Five hundred pounds! And the need thereof so urgent that it must be dealt with at once! But how to obtain it? How? How?
All through the dark hours she lay revolving the matter, questioning this way and that, bound hand and foot, yet not daring to contemplate the only sane means at her disposal of obtaining freedom. To tell her husband the simple truth, to throw herself unreservedly upon his generosity, to beg his forgiveness and his help—these were the things she could not do. As a matter of fact the truth had been so magnified by her fevered fancy that it had begun to appear monstrous even in her own eyes. Those far-off happenings at Valpré had become a dream with a nightmare ending. Not even Aunt Philippa could have distorted them to a more exaggerated semblance of evil. And to go to her husband now with such a story was utterly beyond Chris's powers of accomplishment. She lacked the courage to speak with simplicity and candour, and she was painfully aware that to give a halting account of the matter would be infinitely more dangerous than to keep silence. Already her husband's faith in her veracity had been shaken. Was it likely that he would accept unquestioning her assurance that this matter, which she had rigorously suppressed for so long and which she only imparted to him now under compulsion, was in reality one of trivial importance? Would he believe her? Had she ever fostered his belief in her? Could he in reason do so even if he desired?