The child Chris was gone for ever, the woman Chris remained, a woman with a tragic secret that must never be revealed. She knew now why she had fought so desperately to keep that episode of Valpré from her husband's knowledge. She only marvelled that the reason had never come home to her before. She knew now why she had always shrunk inwardly from the searching of his eyes. She had always dreaded that he might see too much, even that same secret of which she herself must have been vaguely conscious for years.
It was all clear to her now, so clear that she could never shut her eyes to it again. All her life long she must carry it in her heart, and no one must ever know. Sleeping and waking, she must keep it safely hidden. She must go on living a lie all her life, all her life.
She flung out her arms with a sudden gesture of fierce rebellion. Oh, why had she married? Why? Why? Why? Had she not always known in her heart that she was making a terrible, an irrevocable, mistake? How was it she had been so blind? Why had there been no one to warn her of the snare into which she was walking? Why had no hand held her back?
Trevor himself—but no, Trevor did not so much as know that she had left her childhood behind her yet. He was still wondering what childish peccadillo was troubling her, keeping her from accepting his gift. At least, he was very far from suspecting her actual reason; nor must he ever suspect.
Never, as long as they lived, must he know that she had refused the first thing of value that he had offered her since their wedding because in an instant of overwhelming revelation she had just recognized the fact that she loved—had loved for years—another man.
PART III
CHAPTER I
WAR
Two days before that on which Aunt Philippa had decided to take her departure Mordaunt went again to town. Noel, whose holidays were drawing to a close, accompanied him to the station in a state of high jubilation, albeit Holmes was in charge of the motor and there was not the faintest chance of his being allowed to take the wheel.
"I hope you're going to behave yourself," were Mordaunt's last words.