She obeyed.
“This man is your lover, then?”
She looked at him, did not dare to equivocate, and bent her head in acquiescence.
“That is so, isn’t it, Bowden?” he said, without doing him the honor to look at him.
“Yes.”
“That is all that is necessary,” he said; but the shock of the answers had been so intense that it was a moment before he could continue. “I shall trouble you only a moment. The case is quite plain. I am the third. You would have saved us all this if you had come to me openly.”
Then she understood his object. She put out her hands frantically.
“You’re going to divorce me,” she cried hysterically.
Bowden, by the table, still weak from the imminence of the horror which passed, took out his handkerchief and began to mop his brow.
“No. In our set whatever happens, we do not fasten that stain upon the woman,” Garford said. “You will divorce me—and at once. The cause will be desertion. After which, within forty-eight hours you will marry this man. These are my orders!”