"A moment! Come in here. The doorstep's no home for confidence."
"With you—who spread this lying tale!" rasped Bertie.
The two men faced each other. One worn from unhappiness; one big, prosperous, untroubled.
"You've only heard it now then? Now, Carteret? Come in here. You're ill. Keep the car, Jarvis! Come and hear my side."
There was something dominant in Sir Cyril; his will forced Bertie into the dining-room, kept him there to listen to the explanation. There, quietly, without any exaggeration, he told the whole story.
"And you believed this? One side," said Bertie, bitterly. "Sir Cyril, your wife lied; she gave diamonds to my wife."
"Gave them? Why?" The big man's voice rang in cool contempt. "That's your wife's story to you."
"As silence money for some secret. Esmé told me that. It must have been when they were away in Italy. Sir Cyril, my wife was not lying to-day. It was the truth."
"And if mine was?" The big chin stuck out, the heavy brows drew together. Cyril Blakeney could always think quickly. "As silence money," he muttered.
Bertie talked on, told how he had spoken to Esmé, and what she had said. "And she was telling the truth," he said proudly. "She's no thief, Blakeney."