Nance showed no surprise at the sudden irrelevant questions.
"All of them," she answered—"I have them all."
"Then you remember how I met Frances Hope and Val Serracauld—and Lord Deerehurst?"
"I remember."
"I was very much alone at that time, Nance. James was only a shadow in my life; and they—they seemed like sunshine, and I wanted the sunshine. I have always been like a child, turning to bright tawdry things."
"Clo! you're upset to-night!—you're ill!"
"No, I'm not. I've been seeing myself and seeing my life to-night. I liked these people—I liked these men who talked to me and flattered me, and ignored the fact that I had a husband—I liked them and encouraged them. And one night, on the balcony of the Palazza Ugochini——" She stopped, then made a sudden gesture, as if to sweep unnecessary things aside. "But I won't talk of that!" she cried. "It is the later time I want to come to—the time after James's death, when I met Frances Hope again." She paused to regain her breath; but the look of determination did not leave her face. Her dark eyes seemed; almost to challenge Nance's. "When I went to Monte Carlo with Frances," she went on, "I did not go to forget poor James's death, as you believed; I went to forget something else that had made me much more unhappy; and the way I set about forgetting was to gamble. Yes, I know what you feel!—I know what you think! But it cannot alter anything. I gambled. I lost large sums of money that Frances advanced me. I had to borrow, because there were formalities to be gone through about James's will, before I could draw my income. Then I came back to London; I met Val Serracauld and Lord Deerehurst again; I took an expensive flat; I lived like people six times as well off as myself; I gambled again——"
"Clodagh!"
Clodagh put up her hand.
"Wait! It's all leading up to something. I was utterly foolish, utterly mad. I borrowed again to pay my debts at bridge. Then one day Frances asked me for her money. It seemed like the end of the world; but it was a debt of honour—it couldn't be shirked. I wrote her out a cheque that left me beggared of the half-year's income I had been counting on to put me straight."