“Do you like—Joan Meredyth?” she said.
“Splendid! What a clever little brain!” He shut his eyes. “I married Miss Joan Meredyth on the first of June, or was it the second, in the year nineteen hundred and eighteen? We lived a cat-and-dog existence, and parted with mutual recriminations, since when I have not seen her! Marjorie, do you think she will swallow it?”
“If you tell her; but, Hugh, will you—will you?”
“Little girl, is it going to help you?”
“You know it is!” she whispered.
“Then I shall tell her!”
Marjorie lifted a pair of soft arms and put them about his neck.
“Hugh!” she said, “Hugh, if—if I had never known Tom, I—”
“I know,” he said. “I know. God bless you.” He stooped and kissed her on the cheek, and rose.
It was a mad thing this that he was to do, yet he never considered its madness, its folly. It would help her, and Hurst Dormer would never know its golden-haired mistress, after all.