She went at last to her rooms. On the dressing-table waxlights burned, but the bedroom was unlit. She seated herself by the window and looked out at the starlit sky, at the darkly-waving trees of the park. "And this is my welcome home," she thought, "to find in my husband's house my rival and enemy, whose first look, whose first words are insults. She is mistress here, not I. And that fatal folly of my childhood come back. That horrible man!" She shuddered as she sat alone. "Ah, why did I not tell, why did mamma beg me to hide it from him? She was so afraid he would have gone—so afraid her daughter would miss a baronet, and I—I was weak and a coward. No, it is all over—he will never care for me, never trust me again."
He came in as she sat there, mournful and alone. In the dusk of the chamber the little half-hidden white figure caught his eye, the golden hair glimmering through the dusk.
"Ethel," he said, "is that window open? Come away immediately—you will take cold in the draught."
He spoke gently but very coldly as he had never spoken to her before.
She turned to him with a great sob.
"Oh, Victor, forgive me!" she said.
He was silent for a moment. He loved her with a great and passionate love; to see her weep was torture, to see her suffer, misery. She had never been dearer than in this hour. Still he stood aloof, torn by doubt, racked by jealousy.
"Ethel," he cried out, "why did you deceive me? I thought—I could have sworn you were all truth and innocence, stainless as a lily, white as an angel. And to think that another man—and of all men Juan Catheron. No. I can't even think of it—it is enough to drive me mad!"
She fell down on her knees before him and held up her clasped hands.
There was a little sob, and her head lay on his shoulder.
"I tried to once or twice—I did indeed, but you know what a coward I am. And mamma forbade my telling—that is the truth. She said I had been a little fool—that was all over and done with—no need to be a great fool, telling my own folly. And after we were married, and I saw you jealous of every man I looked at—you know you were, sir!—I was more scared than ever. I thought Juan Catheron was dead. I never wrote to him. I had returned all his letters. I thought I had destroyed his picture; I never knew that I had done so very wrong in knowing him at all, until that day in Russell Square. But Victor—husband—only forgive me this once, and I'll never, never have a secret from you again as long as I live."