Marjorie refused to meet his eyes, but her lips framed the name “Sullivan”.
It was her manner more than her speech that caused the dawn of a slow horror. Dilling recalled evidences of the man’s frequent visits—books, flowers, chocolates, games for the children—Yes, he remembered now, that the children called him “Uncle Rufus” . . . and hadn’t Sullivan, himself, hinted at an unsuspected intimacy? Had he not boasted of being Marjorie’s close confidant?
“How long has this been going on?” he asked, pursuing his own line of thought.
“Ever since we first came,” whispered his wife, failing wholly to follow him.
“You don’t mean years?”
She bowed her head.
“Why did I never know?” He put the query more to himself than to her.
“I never tried to keep it from you, Raymond!” she was stung into making a defence. “The very first night . . . you were right in the house. No, not this house—the other one. I should think you would have heard us coming downstairs . . . Always, I have tried not to bother you!”
“Coming downstairs?” he echoed. “My God . . . my God!”
A sudden blackness enshrouded him. He was swallowed up in the wreckage of a too-long life, lived in too short a span. His career had been swept away his love was denied him, and now he had lost his wife . . .