Brand's eyes kindled. His voice became more vehement. The girl's impulsive action seemed to sanctify the deed.
"I did not regret, I have never regretted, the outcome of the duel. He was mortally wounded, and was carried to his house to die. I fled from Paris to escape arrest, but the woman in whose defence I encountered him behaved most cruelly. She deserted me, and went to him. Ask Mrs. Sheppard. She was your English nurse at the time, Constance. It was she who brought you to England. I never met my wife again. I believe, on my soul, that she was innocent of the greater offence. I think she rebelled against the thought that I had slain one who said he worshiped her. Anyhow, she had her price. She remained with him, in sheer defiance of me, until his death, and her reward was his wealth. Were it not for this we might have come together again and striven to forget the past in mutual toleration. The knowledge that she was enriched with that man's gold maddened me. I could not forget that. I loathed all that money could give, the diamonds, the dresses, the insane devices of society to pour out treasure on the vanities of the hour. By idle chance I was drawn to the lighthouse service. It was the mere whim of a friend into whose sympathetic ears I gave my sorrows. It is true I did not intend to devote my life to my present occupation. But its vast silences, its isolation, its seclusion from the petty, sordid, money-grabbing life ashore, attracted me. I found quiet joys, peaceful days, and dreamless nights in its comparative dangers and privations. Excepting my loyal servant and friend, Mrs. Sheppard, and the agent and solicitors of my estate, none knew of my whereabouts. I was a lost man, and, as I imagined, a fortunate one. Now, in the last week of my service—for I would have retired in a few days and it was my intention to tell you something, not all, of my history, largely on account of your love-making, Enid—the debacle has come, and with it my wife."
"Father," asked Constance, "is my mother still your wife by law?"
"She cannot be otherwise."
"I wonder if you are right. I am too young to judge these things, but she spoke of her approaching marriage with Mr. Traill in a way that suggested she would not do him a grievous wrong. She does not love him, as I understand love. She regards him as a man admirable in many ways, but she impressed me with the idea that she believed she was doing that which was right, though she feared some unforeseen difficulty."
Brand looked at her with troubled eyes. It is always amazing to a parent to find unexpected powers of divination in a child. Constance was still a little girl in his heart. What had conferred this insight into a complex nature like her mother's?
"There is something to be said for that view," he admitted. "I recollect now that Pyne told me she had lived some years in the Western States. But he said, too, that her husband, the man whose name she bears, died there. My poor girls, I do, indeed, pity you if all this story of miserable intrigue, this squalid romance of the law-courts, is to be dragged into the light in a town where you are honored. Enid, you see now how doubly fortunate you are in being restored to a father's arms—"
"Oh, no, no!" wailed Enid. "Do not say that. It seems to cut us apart. What have you done that you should dread the worst than can be said? And why should there be any scandal at all? I cannot bear you to say such things."
"I think I understand you, dad," said Constance, her burning glance striving to read his hidden thought. "Matters cannot rest where they are. You will not allow—my mother—to go away—a second time—without a clear statement as to the future and an equally honest explanation of the past."
This was precisely the question he dreaded. It had forced its unwelcome presence upon him in the first moment of the meeting with his wife. But he was a man of order, of discipline. The habits of years might not be flung aside so readily. It was absurd, he held, to inflict the self-torture of useless imaginings on the first night of their home-coming after the severe trials of their precarious life on the rock.