“It is good of you to see us, Mr. Storm.” Julie was making an obvious effort to control her emotion. “We wouldn’t have intruded, but I wanted you to know the truth; I couldn’t bear the thought that the shadow of even the slightest misunderstanding should rest between you and—and Leila’s memory now, especially when it was all my fault.”
“ ‘Your fault’?” Storm repeated. “Sit down, please. I don’t understand——”
“We won’t detain you long, old man.” It was Brewster who spoke, but his words failed to pierce the tumult in the other’s brain. “We felt it would comfort you as much as anything could to know that almost her last thought on earth had been for the happiness of others.”
Storm’s eyes had never left the woman’s face, and to their mute command she responded:
“I’m not going to try your patience with a long story of my own foolishness, but I did a wicked, selfish thing in dragging poor Leila into my troubles just to save myself. She was so generous, so self-sacrificing that she did not murmur at the risk to herself, and I never realized until she—she was dead that I might have been the cause of a misunderstanding between you at the very last. It has almost killed me to think of it, and I simply had to come and tell you the truth about the whole affair!”
Storm tried to collect his reeling senses, but only one clear thought came to his rescue. These people must never know, never suspect that any trouble had arisen between him and Leila.
He steadied his voice with an effort at composure.
“I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Brewster. If my poor wife was able to help you out of any difficulty—I am glad, but I know nothing of it. You speak of a risk——?”
“Yes. I have been very foolish—wilfully, blindly foolish—in the way I’ve acted for weeks past.” She paused and then hurried on shamefacedly. “You see, I thought Dick was neglecting me, and to pay him out I’ve been flirting outrageously with Ted Mattison. Leila tried to influence me, but I wouldn’t listen to her, and when Dick woke up to what was going on and ordered me not even to speak to Ted again I—I resented it and defied him.
“Last Monday I motored out to the Ferndale Inn for lunch alone with Ted, and some horrid, gossipy people were there who knew how I’d been trotting about. I didn’t think they had caught a glimpse of Ted then, but I was sure that if they had recognized me they would put two and two together and tell Dick, and I was afraid; terribly afraid, for Dick had threatened to leave me if I disobeyed him.