"That is the inevitable course," the lawyer said. "With this confession will come the separation. No other way lies open."
Rex swept all the cartridges on the table before him into one heap. The movement seemed to indicate that he had gathered all the tangled threads of this tragedy and bound them into a single strong rope which would extract him from the difficulty.
"You agreed that my search for Lessari's heirs was laudable," he observed quietly. "Together you condemned my method of reparation. You both decide on confession and divorce. Your minds work wonderfully well together, and because your judgment is infallible I accept your verdict."
"You will tell your wife?" questioned Ainsworth, with relief.
"Remember that Corsican blood runs in her veins," Britton said, partly in after-thought. "She may possibly kill me. The story of her father's death by an unknown hand was brought down by stampeders who followed me into Five Mountain Gulch on my second journey there after I had had my claims filed and had recovered from my starvation experience."
Trascott sat back in his chair again. "You can protect yourself," he declared earnestly. "You will not shirk. You must tell her."
Britton smiled with a very strange expression. "I have told her," he said.
"When?" cried both his friends.
"A few minutes ago," Rex answered. "I told her the truth for the first time, and I imparted the secret of my love for the first time!"
They regarded him incredulously.