Mrs. Meredith stirred in her chair and held out her hand to him. She could not rise. She looked at him with an agitated smile. ‘I put perfect faith in you, perfect faith!’ she said, ‘notwithstanding what anyone may say.’
‘In me!’ he said, looking from one to another. He could not imagine what they meant.
‘Beresford,’ said Maxwell again, ‘I will not hide it from you. It has been in my mind all this time. I have never been able to look upon you as I did before; at a crisis like this I could hold my tongue no longer. I have been telling all that happened at the death of your first poor wife.’
‘My first—!’ the exclamation was under his breath, and Maxwell thought he was overcome with horror by the recollection; but that was not what he was thinking of: his first wife!—there was something sickening in the words. Was this his Annie that was meant? It seemed profanation, sacrilege. He heard nothing but that word. Maxwell did not understand him, but there was another who did. The doctor went on,
‘I have never said a word about it till this day, and never would but for what was coming. You know that I took the responsibility, and kept you free from question at the time.’
‘What does he mean?’ This question, after a wondering gaze at the other, Beresford addressed to Mrs. Meredith behind him. ‘All this is a puzzle to me, and not a pleasant one; what does he mean?’
‘This is too much,’ said the doctor. ‘Be a man, and stand to it now at least. I have not blamed you, though I would not have done it myself. I have told her that you consented—to what I have no doubt was poor Mrs. Beresford’s prayer—and gave her—her death——’
‘I—gave her her death—you are mad, Maxwell! I, who would have died a dozen times over to save her!’
‘There is no inconsistency in that. You could not save her, and you gave her—what? I never inquired. Anyhow it killed her, poor girl! It was what she wanted. Am I blaming you? But, James Beresford, whatever may have been in the past, it is your duty to be open now, and she ought to know.’
‘My God, will you not listen to me?’ cried Beresford, driven to despair. He had tried to stop him, to interrupt him, but in vain. Maxwell had only spoken out louder and stronger. He had determined to do it. He was absolutely without doubts on the matter, and he was resolute not to be silenced. ‘She ought to know,’ he went on saying under his breath to himself.