It was over. Denise tottered to a chair, sat there staring; her punishment had fallen at last.
Then, faltering, stumbling, yet afraid to lie, Denise Blakeney told the story. Of Esmé's fear of poverty; of her own wish for a child. "And then it was arranged," she said; "we changed names. The boy was Esmé's. Luigi Frascatelle, the doctor, can tell you."
"The big, splendid boy was yours, Carteret; the poor, puny mite mine," said Cyril Blakeney, bitterly. "Well done, Denise! When a foolish girl was hysterical, foolish, as women are at these times, you advised her well. Lord! I know what she felt when I've seen her looking, looking at her own boy, with heartbreak in her eyes. I've wondered, but did not understand then. It was a pretty plot, milady, to fool me back to an untrue wife. Carteret, we are no judges to blame these two, but one has known her punishment, and one has not."
"Cyril!" sobbed Denise, "have pity! It was for you."
"For me? Pardon me, for my name and my position, knowing that I meant to rid myself of you," he answered coldly. "Carteret, Miss Reynolds is with your dead wife—go to her."
"Cyril," moaned Denise again. "You'll not expose me, for the boy's sake."
She was on her knees by Cyril's side, sobbing, entreating.
"That is for Carteret to decide," he answered. "Go to your room; you will only excite the child."
In the days to come, Denise, fighting for her delicate boy's life, knew no open disgrace. One poor foolish woman had borne it all and died; but the other left behind knew the misery of daily fear. She was a cipher, given no trust or belief; and with her always was the dread that as Cecil grew older he would be taken from her.
Cyril Blakeney, an embittered man, never forgave her.