He made no reply. His face was set. Not a muscle moved in it.
'Philip!' she said, with a catch of pain—a sudden spasm in her heart and throat. 'Philip, the sense of degradation that has come on me since I have known the truth has been almost more than I could bear Not because of myself. What God sends me, that I shall find the strength to bear. I am nobody, and if I find that I am the child of someone worse than nobody—I must endure it. What crushes me is the sense of the shame I have brought on you, Philip, and the sorrow that a touch of dishonour should come to you through me. But I cannot help it. There is no way out of it. It has come on us without fault of ours, and we must bear it—bear it together. I'—she spread out her hands—'I would lay down my life to save you from anything that might hurt you, that might grieve your proud and honourable spirit. But, Philip, I can do nothing. I cannot unmake the fact that I am his daughter and your wife.'
'I shall never, never forgive that the truth was kept from me. The marriage was a fraud practised on me.'
'My dear mother—you know whom I mean—acted with the kindest intentions, but I cannot excuse her for not speaking.'
'Janet knew, as you tell me, and she said nothing.'
'Mamma urged her to remain silent.'
'I was sacrificed,' said Philip bitterly. 'Upon my word, this is a family that transmits from one generation to another the fine art of hoaxing the unsuspicious.'
'Philip!' A rush of indignant blood mantled her face, and then left it again. She heaved a sigh, and said, 'If I had known before I married you whose daughter I was I would on no account have taken you. I would have taken no honest man for his own sake, no other for my own.'
'You know what Schofield was to me—to me above every man. I can recall when I told you and Janet and your mother how he had embittered my life, how he had ruined my father—and you all kept silence.'
'Philip, you are mistaken; I never heard that.'