‘Are you sure you knew everything?’ she demanded sadly. ‘Everything, I mean, before your marriage—and after?’
He turned eagerly and looked at her, for he saw, by her tone and by the expression of her face, that her words meant more than met the ear.
‘After our marriage?’ he repeated.
‘Yes, James. Did Madeline inform you that recently, on two separate occasions, she had meetings with a French gentleman—with the very man, I believe, referred to in these paragraphs?’
‘She had not! No, it is impossible!’
‘Then she did not tell you?’
‘No!’
‘But it is the truth!’
‘It is not the truth—I will never believe it.’
‘I repeat that it is my duty to make you do so,’ said Margaret Forster. ‘Dear James, you must believe it—better now than later on. There is no smoke without fire—no slander without some foundation in fact. May I tell you all I heard?’