"Marie, I ... have you heard me? Marie—come!"
And then, for the first time, Esmé fainted; sank into a merciful blackness, lay cold and still, until Marie found her.
Estelle had decked her room with flowers; had put on a soft gown, when a messenger brought her a letter.
"Estelle, I will not come. You are not a woman for a selfish man to drag down. It is good-bye, and not good-bye for me, for I shall never lose sight of your dear face; but for you, you are a girl—young—forget me. Marry someone you can like; don't leave your life empty. Let home and the kiddies be the cloth to wipe my memory out with. Estelle, I've woken you. I speak from man to woman, plainly. Go to your mother, and marry, for thwarted nature leads to strange miseries. Good-bye, Estelle. Last night Esmé spoke out, and I saw where I was taking you to, and I'll not do it. My place is here, to save my wife, for who am I to prate of morality?"
Estelle read the letter, folded it up; the world was empty, swept clear of love and hope and tenderness.
Very quietly she went to her writing-table, sat down there.
"I have just got your letter," she wrote. "You are right, but one word. People believe that Esmé took, or got, jewels of Lady Blakeney's and sold them at Benhusan's and elsewhere. Her money comes from this source, they say. That is why people have cut her. I could not tell you before, and I was wrong. I do not believe it, but think that they were given to her by Denise Blakeney, and that there is some secret between them. Estelle."
She sent the letter by a cab.
"A thief!" Bertie Carteret turned white to the lips as he read. They called his wife a thief. He sat for an hour before he moved. Should he go to Cyril Blakeney, fling the foul slander in his face? What should he do?
"Move carefully, or I show this."