Blaise looked at her searchingly. He fancied he detected a false note in her voluble speech, and a new idea presented itself to him. Was the woman simply putting up a gigantic bluff? Or was it really Nesta, his wife, waiting in the car at the lodge gates? It occurred to him as perfectly feasible that it might be merely some woman whose remarkable resemblance to the dead girl had suggested to the Countess’s fertile brain the scheme that she should impersonate her.
His mind seized eagerly upon the idea, bolstering it up with Madame de Varigny’s own admissions. “I made little changes in her appearance,” she had said. “The colour of her hair, the way of dressing it.” Probably she was relying on those “little changes,” and on the blurred recollection resulting from the length of time which had elapsed since Nesta’s death, to aid her in her plan of introducing as his wife a woman who closely resembled her. He felt morally sure of it, and the light of hope suddenly shone bravely.
“I believe you are deceiving me,” he said quietly. “Lying—as you have lied all through the piece. I’ll come and see this ‘wife’ you have waiting in the car for me”—grimly. He turned to Jean. “Keep up your courage, sweetheart” he said in a low voice full of infinite solicitude. “I believe the whole thing is a put-up job to separate us.”
Jean smiled at him radiantly. She felt all at once very confident. In a few minutes this nightmarish story of a Nesta still alive and claiming her rights as Blaise’s wife would be proved a lie.
Tormarin crossed the room and opened the door.
“Now, Madame de Varigny—will you come with me?”
The woman hesitated a moment.
“Come,” insisted Blaise firmly. “Or—are you afraid, after all, to bring me face to face with my wife?”
She shook her head.
“No,” she said. “I am not afraid. It is only that I am so sorry—so sorry for the little Jean.”