"How?"
"That's where I want your help. First let me complete my lay-out of the situation.... Matheson is a man of high ideals. But he tangled up his life pretty badly on the night of March 14th, when he tried to cut loose from his old career. It was a mistake. We've both made mistakes, he and I. The unfortunate part is that the consequences don't fall on us. They fall on Mrs Matheson and yourself. You note that I place Mrs Matheson before yourself? That's deliberate."
Again he paused, but Elaine did not make any comment. She guessed now what Larssen had come to say to her, and a shiver of fear went through her. Not fear of Larssen as a man, but as a spokesman for Fate. In the deliberate unfolding of his statement, there was the passionless gravity of Fate.
Guessing her thoughts, Larssen's voice deepened as he continued: "I definitely place Mrs Matheson before yourself. She is his wife. He married her for better or worse. However mistaken he may have been in his estimate of her, he must keep to his promise of the altar-side. She is his wife. As a man of honour, Matheson's first duty is to stand by his wife. I don't want to wound your feelings, believe me. But I have to say this: you must realise Mrs Matheson's point of view."
"I think I do."
"Do you realise that she is eating her heart out in loneliness?"
"I didn't know."
"I do know. I went to see her a couple of days ago at Thornton Chase. The change in her these last few weeks startled me. I deliberately say this: you have, unknowingly, dealt her a blow from which she will never recover. She is naturally far from strong, and though I'm not a doctor, I venture to make this prophecy: within three years, Mrs Matheson will be dead."
A low cry of expostulation came from Elaine.
"It's an ugly, brutal fact," pursued Larssen, pressing home his advantage to the fullest extent. Now that he had probed for and reached the raw nerve of feeling, he intended to keep it tight gripped in the forceps of his words. "It's brutal, but it's true. Unwittingly, you have shortened her life."