"I don't know that it matters about not telling her," Chris said wretchedly. "She told me afterwards that she had known all the time, though God alone knows who told her."
There was a little silence; then:
"I did," said Feathers quietly.
271 "You!" The blood rushed to Chris' face. He swung round and stared at his friend with hot eyes.
"You!" he said again.
"Yes; I was talking to Atkins in the lounge the first night you were married. I repeated to him what Aston Knight had told me—that you had married your wife for her money . . . and she overheard."
He looked at Chris' incredulous face.
"It's the truth," he said. "I never knew until weeks afterwards that she had overheard, until she told me herself, and even then I believed that I had only repeated what was true."
He smiled painfully. "Go on, curse me to all eternity; I deserve it; I've been at the bottom of all the mischief."
There was a terrible silence. Chris understood well enough now without further explanations, and for a moment he saw the world red. He broke out savagely: