“No. I am not mad. I am telling you the truth. You can never marry Jean Peterson, because Nesta—your wife—still lives.”
Tormarin fell back a pace. For one moment he believed the woman had gone genuinely mad—that by dint of long brooding upon how she might most hurt and punish the Englishman whom she had never forgiven for marrying her sister, she had evolved from a half-crazed mind the belief that Nesta still lived and that thus she would be able to prevent his marriage with any other woman.
And then, looking into those seeming soft brown eyes with the granite hardness in their depths, he could see the light of reason burning steadily within them.
Madame de Varigny was quite sane, as sane as he was himself. And if so...
A great fear came upon him—the fear of a man who dimly senses the approach of some appalling danger and knows that it will find him utterly defenceless.
“Do you know what you are saying?” he demanded, his voice roughened and uneven.
“Yes, I know. Nesta is alive,” she repeated simply.
“Alive?”
The word was wrung from him, hardly more than a hoarse whisper of sound. He swung round upon her violently.
“But you yourself wrote and told me of her death?” She nodded placidly.