“I beg your pardon, sir,” interrupted Dick, gently. “What you tell me to-night will, as far as I am concerned, be repeated to only one person—the Secretary.”
“Thanks; that assurance makes it easier for me. If I had recollected about the telephone call I would have gone to the President myself; but—” a shrug completed his sentence. “Now, as I understand it, Tillinghast,” he continued, “you three men think I came down here, met my wife, quarreled with her, and killed her.”
“Yes, that’s about it,” admitted Dick, reluctantly.
“It is, I suppose, a natural inference. But the woman whom I was talking to in this room—was not my wife.”
Dick started so violently that he overturned a pile of magazines lying on the desk by his elbow. He was too confused to pick them up, but sat gazing blankly at Trevor. A vulgar intrigue! He had never supposed he was that sort of man.
The Attorney General colored painfully as he read Dick’s thought.
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” he said, harshly. “To explain matters fully I shall have to go back to my marriage to Hélène de Beaupré. We met in London, and I, like many others, fell madly in love with her. She returned my affection, and I persuaded her to marry me at once.
“She has always been a good and loving wife to me. But I found she had one fault; in fact, it became an overwhelming passion—she gambled. It seemed to be some taint in her blood. Again and again I remonstrated with her, but to no purpose. She gambled so persistently, so recklessly, and her losses were so large that, finally, I told her my income was crippled by her extravagance, and that hereafter she would have to live within a certain allowance. She realized at last that I was in earnest, and did her best to comply with my request. Would God I had never made it!” Trevor spoke with passionate feeling. “I might have known that a born gambler can never be cured or kept within bounds.
“Well, to go on with my story, I thought that she had stopped gambling, knowing that she had not overdrawn her allowance, or appealed to me for extra money. But on Monday, February 1st, I went to the Barclays’ about midnight to fetch my wife home from their card party. They play bridge for high stakes in that house, and I had asked my wife to decline the invitation. She refused to do so, however, saying if I would go there for supper she would leave with me immediately afterwards. Knowing that most of the high play took place after midnight, I agreed to do as she requested.
“When I entered the Barclays’ drawing-room the guests were still playing, and I went and stood silently behind my wife’s chair. She was absorbed in the play and did not notice my presence. To my unspeakable horror, I saw her deliberately cheat.