Sigrid had been pale when she came out. Now a faint delicate colour tinged her cheeks, bringing life and energy to her listless transparency. She put her ungloved hand to her face with a little familiar gesture of surprise and thought—but to Marie Barclay it expressed mockery.
"It's true," she burst out. "I can prove it——"
"I'm sure you can—only not here. It's so wet. Purga, you can walk Astora for a little. Won't you come in—Mrs. Barclay?"
She gave her visitor no opportunity to answer, but led the way to the library where Mrs. Smithers, with ruffled grey hair and a face of care and perpetual perplexity, sat beneath the marble Venus knitting a pair of mittens which no human being was ever likely to wear.
"Smithy, this lady has come all the way from Calcutta. She's Mrs. Barclay—Jim's wife."
Mrs. Smithers let the mittens drop into her lap, but she gave no other sign of consternation. She was in the state of a person who has been subjected to a vigorous course of electric treatment and has become impervious to shocks.
"Lawks a-mercy!" she exclaimed wearily. "Well, and I'm not surprised. It's not the last thing I expected to hear. I warrant there's a good few of 'em about the country if we only knew."
"But this is true, Smithy—I'm sure it is, isn't it?" She turned, with a quick gracious movement, to the woman at her side, but for a moment the latter did not answer. Her full, rather pretty, mouth was desperately closed to hide its trembling. Her hands were interlocked in front of her. A strand of straight black hair straggled untidily across her face, and she tried to toss it back with an upward jerk of her head. It was as though she dared not unclasp her hands.
"Yes, it's true," she said at last. "I can prove it. We were married—years ago—in Calcutta. He's kept it quiet—I know—he was ashamed. He thought I'd pull him back. He wanted to get on so badly—and I put up with it. I'd—I'd have put up with anything. He said he'd send for me—afterwards—but he never did. I hadn't heard from him for weeks. He didn't send any money—there was hardly any left—just enough to bring me here——" she looked from one woman to another, and there was a tortured, hunted look in her eyes that made her violent defiance pitiable. "I didn't mean to tell—he made me promise—but I've been so unhappy—so desperate—when I found he'd gone—and—and you here, I lost my head—I couldn't bear it any longer—I couldn't——"
She dropped down into the chair nearest her, her face buried in her hands, crying wildly.