And he felt that it was true; here was the solution to the conduct which had puzzled him, puzzled the doctors, puzzled the household and the countess-dowager.
"And how—and how?" he gasped.
"When that stranger was here last, I heard what he said to you," she replied, avowing the fact without shame in the moment's terrible anguish. "I made the third at the interview."
He looked at her in utter disbelief.
"You refused to let me go down. I followed you, and stood at the little door of the library. It was open, and I—heard—every word."
The last words were spoken with an hysterical sobbing. "Oh, Maude!" broke from the lips of Lord Hartledon.
"You will reproach me for disobedience, of course; for meanness, perhaps; but I knew there was some awful secret, and you would not tell me. I earned my punishment, if that will be any satisfaction to you; I have never since enjoyed an instant's peace, night or day."
He hid his face in his pain. This was the moment he had dreaded for years; anything, so that it might be kept from her, he had prayed in his never-ceasing fear.
"Forgive, forgive me! Oh, Maude, forgive me!"
She did not respond; she did not attempt to soothe him; if ever looks expressed reproach and aversion, hers did then.