"Don't," said Janet. "If it's true, don't say it, but let it die with you. Don't break Mr Brand's heart now at the last moment."
Cuckoo's astute eyes dwelt on Janet's face. How slow she was! What a blunt instrument had Fate vouchsafed to her.
"I speak to save him," she said. "Don't interrupt again, but listen. It all goes back a long way. I was forced into marrying Arthur. I disliked him, for I was in love with some one else—some one, as I see now, not fit to black his boots. I was straight when I married Arthur, but—I did not stay straight afterwards. Arthur is a hard man, but he was good and tender to me always, and he trusted me absolutely. I deceived him—for years. The child is not Arthur's. Arty is not Arthur's. I never was really sorry until a year ago, when he—the other—left me for some one else. He said he had fallen in love with a good woman—a snowflake." Even now Cuckoo set her teeth at the remembrance of that speech. But she hurried on. "That was the time I fell ill. And Arthur nursed me. You don't know what Arthur is. I never seemed to have noticed before. Other people fail, but Arthur never fails. And I seemed to come to myself. I could not bear him out of my sight. And ever since I have loved him, as I thought people only loved in poetry books. I saw he was the only one. And I thought he would never know. If he did, it would break his heart and mine, wherever I was."
Cuckoo waited a moment, and then went on with methodical swiftness:
"But I never burnt the—the other one's letters. I always meant to, and I always didn't. It has been in my mind ever since I was ill to burn them. I never thought I should die like this. I put it off. The truth is, I could not bear to look at them, and remember how I'd—but I meant to do it. I knew when I came to myself at the foot of the stairs that I was dying, but I did not really mind—except for leaving Arthur, for he told me all our flat was burnt and everything in it, and I only grieved at leaving him. But this morning, when the place was cold enough for people to go up, Arthur told me—he thought it would please me—that my sitting-room, and part of the other rooms, were still standing with everything in them, and he heard that my picture was not even touched. It hangs over the Italian cabinet. But when I heard it I thought my heart would break, for the letters are in the Italian cabinet, and I knew that some day when I am gone—perhaps not for a long time, but some day—Arthur would open that cabinet—my business papers are in it, too—and would find the letters."
Cuckoo's weak, metallic voice weakened yet more.
"And he would see I had deceived him for years, and that Arty is not his child. Arthur was so pleased when Arty was born."
There was an awful silence; the ice dripped in the pail.
"I don't mind what happens to me," said Cuckoo, "or what hell I go to, if only Arthur might stay loving me when I'm gone, as he always has—from the very first."