"But why—in Heaven's name?"
Ember smiled sombrely at the drooping ash of his cigar. "There were several reasons. In the first place I didn't have to: I had asked no retainer from Drummond, and I rendered no bill: what I had found out was mine, to keep or to sell, as I chose. I chose not to sell because—well, because Mrs. Whitaker begged me not to."
"Ah!" Whitaker breathed, sitting back. "Why?"
"This was all of a year, I think, after your marriage. Mrs. Whitaker had tasted the sweets of independence and—got the habit. She had adopted a profession looked upon with abhorrence by her family; she was succeeding in it; I may say her work was foreshadowing that extraordinary power which made her the Sara Law whom you saw to-night. If she came forward as the widow of Hugh Whitaker, it meant renunciation of the stage; it meant painful scenes with her family if she refused to abandon her profession; it meant the loss of liberty, of freedom of action and development, which was hers in her decent obscurity. She was already successful in a small way, had little need of the money she would get as claimant of your estate. She enlisted my sympathy, and—I held my tongue."
"That was decent of you."
The man bowed a quiet acknowledgment. "I thought you'd think so.... There was a third reason."
He paused, until Whitaker encouraged him with a "Yes—?"
"Mr. Whitaker"—the query came point-blank—"do you love your wife?"
Whitaker caught his breath. "What right—!" he began, and checked abruptly. The blood darkened his lean cheeks.
"Mrs. Whitaker gave me to understand that you didn't. It wasn't hard to perceive, everything considered, that your motive was pure chivalry—Quixotism. I should like to go to my grave with anything half as honourable and unselfish to my credit."