“As soon as I reached home that afternoon I rushed to Leila, told her the whole thing and made her promise to say that she had been to the Inn with me. It never occurred to me that that promise would make her tell you a lie; I’m afraid I didn’t think about anything except the trouble I was in and how I could manage to get out of it.”
So that was it! They had come to explain about that paltry lie! Brewster dared to stand there while his wife made her trivial confession, while all the time—! A turbulent flame of rage arose in Storm’s heart, but he quelled it rigorously. Caution, now! Brewster must not suspect!
“I knew that my wife had not been with you.” Could that be his own voice speaking with such quiet restraint? “In fact, I had seen her myself in town at noon, although she did not know it. Please don’t distress yourself further, Mrs. Brewster; I know what her errand was in town and why she wished to keep it from me.”
“Oh!” Julie started for a moment and then added miserably: “Leila was sure that you guessed she had fibbed to you. The very next day—the last day of her life!—she begged me to absolve her from her promise, for she said you had seemed so strange and cold to her that morning she was afraid you suspected, and it was the first time she had ever told you an untruth!”
“She must have imagined a change in my attitude,” Storm said hastily. “I was preoccupied and in a hurry to get to town, but that little white lie never gave me a moment’s uneasiness. I would have chaffed her about it only I did not want to spoil her surprise.”
“Surprise!” Julie echoed.
“Yes. When I had seen her in town the day before she was just coming out of Alpheus Jaffray’s office in the Leicester Building.” He felt a measure of grim satisfaction at Brewster’s uncontrollable start. “She had been there to arrange to purchase from him the trout stream which adjoins the property here and which he had refused to sell me; you know as well as the rest of the crowd what a veritable feud has existed between the old fellow and me. I learned the truth from my attorney, whom Leila had consulted previously about the transaction. My poor wife intended it as a birthday surprise for me. My birthday is to-day—to-day!”
He turned away to hide the rage which was fast getting beyond his control at the smug, hypocritical presence of that other man, but his emotion was misread by both his companions.
“To-day! How terrible for you, Storm!” began Brewster, but his wife sobbed:
“If Leila had only guessed! But that untruth made her positively wretched! Why, when I telephoned to her late that night and she came out to meet me——”