'Quite. Almost with her last breath she talked about it, and said that she must make her will. And she had spoken of it several times lately. The people there knew all about her affairs. She kept putting it off—and as likely as not she wished the money to be mine, after all. I am sure she must have felt that she owed me something.'
Carnaby experienced a profound relief. Sibyl was now provided for, whatever turn his affairs might take. She had seated herself by the window, and, with her gloved hands crossed upon her lap, was gazing absently towards the sea. How great must be her relief! thought Hugh. And still he looked at her smooth, pure features; at her placid eyes, in which, after all, he seemed to detect a little natural sadness; and the accusation in his mind assumed so grotesque an incredibility that he asked himself how he should dare to hint at it.
'Sibyl——'
'Isn't there something you haven't told me?' she said, regarding him with anxiety, when he had just uttered her name and then averted his look. 'I never saw you look so ill.'
'Yes, dear, there is something.'
It was not often he spoke so gently. Sibyl waited, one of her hands clasping the other, and her lips close set.
'I was at Wimbledon last night—at Redgrave's.'
He paused again, for the last word choked him. Unless it were a tremor of the eyelids, no movement betrayed itself in Sibyl's features; yet their expression had grown cold, and seemed upon the verge of a disdainful wonder. The pupils of her eyes insensibly dilated, as though to challenge scrutiny and defy it.
'What of that?' she said, when his silence urged her to speak.
'Something happened between us. We quarrelled.'