“Oh, don’t be offended. Why should you be, when what I say is true? Listen. I was his wife, you know. He was a rich man when I married him, and I brought him money myself. All went well while the money lasted, and we could live well and ostentatiously, keep horses and carriages—there were no motor-cars in those days—and a yacht and every luxury. Then the money ran short—the times changed, difficulties grew. Things grew worse and worse and presently they began to mend again, mend mysteriously. It was some time before I knew that there was anything wrong about the new prosperity, but when the knowledge did come, when I understood that I was expected to share in the vile work—to help in ugly schemes—cheating at cards—forgery—fraud—he was clever at them all—I stood firm, I refused.”
She paused, and the remembrance of the far-away time she referred to seemed to increase the intense melancholy of her worn face, to render her deep voice more hollow. When she went on speaking, there came again over her face that wild look which had made the servants at Miss Willett’s, and Audrey herself, take her for a madwoman.
“When he found he could do nothing with me, he changed his plans. Since I would not help him, I must go. By every cruel device, every wicked stratagem he tried to drive me out of my mind; he sent my two children away from me, he worked upon my nerves until I became hysterical, used threats which nobody would believe, threats of abandoning my little children, of murdering me.”
“Why didn’t you tell some one?” said Audrey.
“Because nobody would have believed me. He was gentle, handsome, with a caressing voice and charming manner. I was hysterical, irritable, proud, perhaps overbearing and too unhappy to be liked. Everybody took his part, and said how hard it was for genial, charming Eugène Reynolds to be tied to such an unamiable wife.”
“Why didn’t you run away from him?”
“I tried, but he was too clever for me. He knew that I would have moved heaven and earth to find my children, that I would have exposed, denounced him, once safely away from his diabolical influence, once free to breathe and to act for myself. For, though I hated him, I feared him too, and dared scarcely move without his permission. I don’t know how I managed to keep firm in refusing to help him. I think now it was his fear that I should break down and blunder that saved me. For I used to feel that, if he had gone on insisting, I should have yielded at last. As it was, I was of no use to him, so he hated me, and again and again I thought he would kill me. And I told his friends so, and that was my undoing. He, with his sweet voice and caressing ways, to attempt to kill me, a tall, strong, powerful woman! The thing was absurd. And then the way was smooth for what he did. He got two doctors to certify that I was insane—one of them believed it, I’m sure, and the other was the sort of flabby man who can be led to believe anything—and I was shut up in a lunatic asylum.”
There was a pause, and then she said in a hollow whisper:—
“I’ve been there fourteen years!”
“What!” cried Audrey, aghast, incredulous, horror-struck.