"I can't guess."
Ingersoll stooped, and tapped his pipe on one of the heavy iron dogs guarding the hearth. Straightening himself, he drew a labored breath, like one who braces his nerves to face a dreaded but unavoidable ordeal.
"Then I'll tell you," he said. "Mrs. Carmac is Yvonne's mother. She left me soon after Yvonne was born—went off to her people in the States. There, after some delay, she secured a divorce. Later I heard that she had married Carmac, who was immensely rich, while I could barely afford to maintain a small flat in Montmartre. Carmac was not a bad sort of fellow in his way. He was, I believe, devoted to Stella, my wife. She too was better suited to him than to me.
"But Carmac, though of Southern birth, had become a naturalized Englishman, having, I understand, some ambition toward a political career on this side. Now I doubt very much whether the divorce proceedings were valid according to British law, and a wife takes her husband's nationality. Had I been wise and dispassionate, I should have given Stella her full freedom. But I did not—may Heaven forgive me! I was so utterly crushed after leaving Paris and seeking sanctuary in Pont Aven that I disregarded her entirely. None of my associates knew where I had gone. Every sort of effort was put forth to find me, but without success. Eighteen years ago, Lorry, Pont Aven was a long way from Paris. There was no railway, and communication with the outside world was mainly by sea.
"At last, despairing of any assistance from me, Stella and Carmac risked everything on the American decree. They were married openly. The wedding was announced in all the society newspapers. Even I, buried alive here, read of it. But, if the question were raised, it might be held in England that Stella is still my wife in the eyes of British law."
Ingersoll made this astounding statement in a voice so calm and free from emotion that Tollemache stared at him in blank amazement. Of course events had given the younger man some inkling of the truth; but he had never imagined anything so disastrously far-reaching.
"Good Lord!" he gasped. "That is terrible—that means all sorts of beastly complications!"
Ingersoll threw out a hand in a gesture of sheer hopelessness. "It means this,—if Raymond suspects that the marriage was invalid, and Carmac left his money to his 'wife,' the will can be upset, Mrs. Carmac will be stripped of every penny except her personal belongings, and Rupert Fosdyke and his sisters will inherit the estate. Naturally I know nothing of the exact position of affairs beyond the hints I pick up from Yvonne.
"She, poor girl, hasn't the remotest notion of the tragedy that I see looming darkly above the horizon—because it is the very essence of tragedy that a woman who sold her happiness for gold should be despoiled in the hour when the bribe might be regarded as most surely within her grasp. Lorry, I pity her! She is well aware that she is clinging to the edge of a precipice.
"Raymond's inquiries concerning Yvonne and myself, which you overheard, and which were confirmed by Peridot, warned me of her danger. When you carried that maimed scoundrel into the cabin of the Hirondelle he retained his senses sufficiently to understand the tremendous significance of Mrs. Carmac's ravings. To the ordinary ear they would sound like the gabble of dementia; to Raymond, already disliked by his mistress, and retained only as a useful slave by his master, they conveyed immense potentialities. But at first he must have felt like a traveler in the desert tantalized by a mirage. Investigation in Pont Aven might strengthen his suspicions; but he could never obtain proof. He dared not appeal to me. Rogues of his class have a tolerably clear notion of the sort of man they must not meddle with: probably he summed up the father through the daughter. Now, perhaps, you see where this Parisian inquiry agent comes in?"