Janey reflected.
"I am not sure," she said composedly, "what I should have done. But, you see, it did not happen so. She has told you. I am thankful she has, Roger, though it must have been hard for her. It is the only thing I've ever kept back from you. It is a great weight off my mind that you know. Only I'm ashamed now that I ever doubted her. I did doubt her. I had begun to think she would never say."
"She's the last person in the world, the very last, that I should have thought possible——"
He could not finish his sentence, and Janey and he looked fixedly at each other.
"Yes," she said slowly, "she is. I never get any nearer understanding how anyone like Annette could have done it."
Roger in his haste with his story had omitted the evil prologue which had led to the disaster.
"She wished you to know everything," he said, and he told her of Annette's treacherous lover, and her father's infamy, and her flight from his house in the dawn.
"She was driven to desperation," said Janey. "When she met Dick she was in despair. I see it all now. She did not know what she was doing, Roger. Annette has been sinned against."
"I should like to wring that man's neck who bought her, and her father's who sold her," said Roger, his haggard eyes smouldering.
There was a long silence.