Presently she whispered "Go on," as though she had steeled herself to bear the next stroke of the knife.
"My reason was that I wanted to cut myself loose—completely—from my life in the financial world and from my married life. A sudden opportunity came to me two days before I first met you at Arles. I seized the opportunity and planned to disappear entirely from my world. I arranged evidence of a violent death, in the belief that it would be accepted by my friends and by the Courts. My wife would be freed; she would come into my property; and I myself should be free to carry out in quiet the scientific work I'd planned."
"Which was the reason?"
"The last."
"Your wife, then, is the woman I saw in the Côte d'Azur Rapide?"
"Yes."
Elaine considered this in silence for some moments. A question framed itself on her lips; she hesitated; finally it came out:
"Then you were not happy together?"
"My marriage was a ghastly mistake. I was quite unsuited to my wife.... But I made a bigger mistake when I thought to cut loose from the life I'd woven for myself. One thread pulled me back inexorably. I had half committed myself to a deal involving five millions of the public's money with Lars Larssen, the shipowner——"
"Larssen!" she exclaimed.