“I have felt the need of confession for a long time, ever since, in fact, and now I must make it and have done with it, once for all. The sight of her dead white face struck me dumb with anguish, with self remorse, not because I loved her, but—because I hated her.”
“Oh, no, no. It’s not possible. When you were so patient, so tender, so indulgent!”
He turned to her quickly:
“And that was the reason why. I was not indulgent, but over-indulgent. It was to salve my conscience, to stifle it. Heaven knows,” he went on earnestly, “that I loved her passionately, desperately once. For years she was my ideal; to the last in appearance she remained my model of loveliness in a woman. But she had lost my heart long before she died. She could have kept it easily enough had she wished. But she did not wish. My affection bored her, and she killed it, killed it deliberately. Knowing that the link between us was so slender that it might at any moment snap, and wishing for Caryl’s sake to keep it intact, I put up with everything, I yielded to her in everything. I made sacrifices, I gave up my own wishes to hers. But,” and he turned upon her again with fire in his quiet eyes, “I should not have been so indulgent, so yielding, if I had loved her. It was the tragedy of it that I had grown to hate her. When she lay dead I felt remorse, excitement, horror. But of tenderness scarcely a trace. And,” he lowered his voice as if in shame, “it was because I felt as I did feel that I had to go away without seeing you, or speaking to you. I was afraid that you would find me out. It would have shocked you. You might have found out more too. So it was better that I should go as I did go.”
Half-stunned, Rhoda turned and led the way back to the house.
“You must see Caryl,” she said hoarsely.
She could scarcely realise the secret with which she had been entrusted. It was so hard, remembering his indulgence to his wilful wife, to understand the motive which had prompted his excess of kindness.
They went upstairs to Caryl’s room, after Sir Robert had met and spoken to the ladies of the house.
The boy had seen him from his window, and was clapping his hands with glee.
“Papa, papa,” cried he, “Oh, how glad, how glad I am!”