“Well, what is it?” the physician repeated.
Felix stopped short and gave himself an angry shake. Then with a little snarl he faced about and began, with eyes averted:
“I don’t suppose it will please you to hear it,” he blurted out, and the other could not know that the sharpness in his tones was merely the expression of his futile rage against that hated other will, housed within his own body, that was forcing him to do a thing sure to interfere with his plans and pleasures. “But I’m going to tell you and you can make the best of it.”
In his impotent anger he was ready now to say any ruthless thing that occurred to him. And not for any price would he have had Dr. Annister discover that he was not making this confession of his own accord.
“You said yesterday that the engagement between Mildred and me must be ended. Well, it is ended, but not in the way you meant. We are married.”
“What! What do you say?” the doctor exclaimed, wheeling toward him with frowning brow.
“I said, we’re married already. We’ve been married two months. I took her over to Jersey one day and we were married there.”
“You dared—Felix Brand, you dared do this, knowing what you knew?”
“It seems so,” the other coolly replied. “Mildred was quite willing,” he went on with a little sneer. “I needed her love. I’d have been a fool not to take what she was ready to give me. And I married her. Maybe I was a fool to do that, but I did.”