"Impossible!" he said, recovering from a pause of surprise.
"He did indeed. I am not sure that he knew the exact particulars, but he knew a very great deal. I believe--I fancy--that he had gathered even a worse impression of it than the case actually warranted."
Captain Davenal was incredulous. "From whom did he learn it?"
"I cannot tell you. I have always feared that, as he knew it, it must have been known to others."
"I tell you, Sara, that beyond you and my father, and King, nobody in the world knew of it. You are under some mistake. Oswald Cray could not have known of it."
"Nay then, Edward, as it has come so far I will tell you the truth. Oswald Cray did know of it, and it was that, and nothing else, that caused us to part. He--he thought, after that, that I was no fit wife for him," she added in a low tone of pain. "And in truth I was not."
A pause of distress. "Unfit as my sister?"
"Yes. I suppose he feared that the crime might at any time be disclosed to the world."
"But how could he have known it?" reiterated Captain Davenal, the one surprise overwhelming every other emotion in his mind. "King I know would not tell; for his own sake he dared not: and we may be very sure my father did not. He sacrificed himself to retain it a secret."
"That Oswald Cray knew of it I can assure you," she repeated. "He must have known of it as soon--or almost as soon--as we did. From that night that you came down to Hallingham in secret his behaviour changed; and a little later, when a sort of explanation took place between us, he spoke to me of what had come to his knowledge. I know no more."