She brushed the question aside.
"Did you believe her when she said that?"
"Yes. Why should I have doubted? It seemed to be the end. I fainted on the doorstep. A long illness followed, when it was at its worst a friend came—helped me to pull out. When I was well again, I searched for your mother, employed detectives, but we never found her. Neither did we find anything upon which to hang a doubt of what she had told me."
"No. She was very clever."
"But why? For God's sake, why? Why should she lie to me? I had never harmed her. We were married. I could give you a home. She knew it. I told her. Why should she do this senseless, horrible thing?"
She looked at him with wide eyes and stammered,
"Don't—don't you know?"
A sense of some hitherto undreamed horror came to him with that stammering whisper. The spur of it brought some of his firmness back.
"I do not know. There must have been a reason. You must tell me."
He forced her, through sheer will, to lift her eyes to his. They were startled and sullen. With a start he saw, what he had missed before, that this woman, his wife, was a stranger. But he had himself well in hand now and his gaze did not falter. There was no escaping its demands. Her answer came in a little burst of defiance.