“He is not an American. He never had any right whatever to the name of Dinwiddie, and how he possessed himself of it I do not know. He is an Englishman. His real name is James Howard Drummond. He is the younger son of a titled family in England. I knew him when I was a girl. I have known him all my life. As a girl I fell in love with him. As a girl and woman I still loved him, and finally I became his wife.
“Hush, Lenore. I am not his wife now. I secured a divorce from him when he was sent to prison eight years and more ago. Later, I married again. But I was his wife, and I am the Nan Drummond he referred to—his wife, then, when I bore that name.
“It was this way: My family became impoverished. I sought a position as governess, and went to South Africa with the family of an army officer. Later, Howard Drummond came there, also sent out by his family matters, as he informed me. My old love for him revived, and we were married.
“Then we came to this country. All the while he was a thief and a cracksman, and I did not know it—until later.
“After the discovery, my life seemed an utter wreck. I permitted myself to be led into crime by that man. I was afraid of him. He threatened my life if I did not obey him. Then he was caught and sent to prison, and I escaped him. And then Mr. Carter found me, held out hope to me, secured me a position on the stage, and so helped me back to an honorable life.
“I married a Mr. Smathers, an actor, and he has since died. Howard Drummond was supposed to be dead, also. Mr. Carter believed him dead; everybody who had known him thought the same. I did not know differently until last Thursday night, in the middle of the night, when I went to the library of this house to get a book to read, and found him there with Lenore’s necklace and the other stolen jewels on the table before him.
“The recognition between us was mutual in an instant.
“He threatened me with a pistol. He even tried to make love to me again, believing that his old influence over me still existed. But he found that it did not.
“We were there, in the library, a long time. At the end of the scene, he promised me that he would return the stolen property, and that he would leave here for good and all. Formerly he possessed one virtue; he would keep his word; so I believed him then.
“But he did not restore the stolen property, and I threatened him with exposure.