“Marriage!” said Clare, looking at him like one bewildered. “Marriage!—I am not talking of marriage! Is there—a boy—another heir?”
And then again there was a terrible silence. The man to whom Clare looked so confidently as her husband, demanding explanations from him, shrank away from her, cowering, with his face hidden by his hands.
“Will no one answer me?” she said. Her face was ghastly with suspense—every drop of blood seemed to have been drawn out of it. Her eyes went from her husband to Edgar, from Edgar back to her husband. “Tell me, yes or no—yes or no! I do not ask more!”
“Clare, it is not that! God forgive me! The woman is alive!” said Arthur Arden, with a groan that seemed to come from the bottom of his heart.
“The woman is alive!” she cried, impatiently. “I am not asking about any woman. What does he mean? The woman is alive!” She stopped short where she stood, holding fast by the back of her chair, making an effort to understand. “The woman! What woman? What does he mean?”
“His wife,” said Edgar, under his breath.
Clare turned upon him a furious, fiery glance. She did not understand him. She began to see strange glimpses of light through the darkness, but she could not make out what it was.
“Will not you speak?” she cried piteously, putting her hand upon her husband’s shoulder. “Arthur, I forgive you for keeping it from me; but why do you hide your face?—why do you turn away? All you can do for me now is to tell me everything. My boy!—is he disinherited? Stop,” she cried wildly; “let me sit down. There is more—still more! Edgar, come here, close beside me, and tell me in plain words. The woman! What does he mean?”
“Clare,” cried Edgar, taking her cold hands into his, “don’t let it kill you, for your children’s sake. They have no one but you. The woman—whom he married then—is living now.”
“The woman—whom he married then!” she repeated, with lips white and stammering. “The woman!” Then stopped, and cried out suddenly—“My God! my God!”