"Is that so?"
"It is. I'll tell you why some day. In fact, I don't mind telling you now. Aunt Hannah has it in for me. She's a devil sometimes. You know it and I do. She has it in for me just now. She's wrong; she's made a mistake; but I couldn't tell her anything. You can't tell that sort of a woman anything, once she's made up her mind. And the fact is, Jack, she's already made up her mind that I was not to marry Jacqueline. And I was afraid of her. And that's why I married Jacqueline this way."
Cairns stared.
"So now," added Desboro, "you know how it happened."
"Quite so. Rotten of her, wasn't it?"
"She didn't mean it that way. She got a fool idea into her head, that's all. Only I was afraid she'd tell it to Jacqueline."
"I see."
"That's what scared me. I didn't know what she might tell Jacqueline. She threatened to tell her—things. And it would have involved a perfectly innocent woman and myself—put me in a corner where I couldn't decently explain the real facts to Jacqueline. Now, thank God, it's too late for Aunt Hannah to make mischief."
Cairns nodded, thinking of Mrs. Clydesdale. And whatever he personally was inclined to believe, he knew that gossip was not dealing very leniently with that young wife and the man who sat on the other side of the table, nervously pulling to pieces his unlighted cigarette.