'And if I am their father,' he pursued, with resolute mirthfulness, 'pray, who do you suppose their mother to be?'
Still Alma kept silence, her head bent.
'I'll warrant I can give you evidence against myself which you hadn't discovered,' Rolfe went on—'awful and unanswerable evidence. It is I who support those children, and pay for their education!—it is I, and no other. See your darkest suspicion confirmed. If only you had known this for certain!'
'Why, then, do you do it?' asked Alma, without raising her eyes.
'For a very foolish reason: there was no one else who could or would.'
'And why did you keep it a secret from me?'
'This is the blackest part of the whole gloomy affair,' he answered, with burlesque gravity. 'It's in the depraved nature of men to keep secrets from their wives, especially about money. To tell the truth, I'm hanged if I know why I didn't tell you before our marriage. The infamous step was taken not very long before, and I might as well have made a clean breast of it. Has Mrs. Abbott never spoken to you about her cousin, Wager's wife?'
'A word or two.'
'Which you took for artful fiction? You imagined she had plotted with me to deceive you? What, in the name of commonsense, is your estimate of Mrs. Abbott's character?'
Alma drew a deep breath, and looked up into her husband's face. 'Still—she knew you were keeping it from me, about the money.'