She started. For a moment she did not answer.
He waited. At last: "You didn't mean it?" he said, his tone cold.
The room, the high window with its stained escutcheons, the dark oak walls, the dark oak table, the leafage reflected cool and green in the tall mirror opposite the door, went round with her; she swallowed something that rose in her throat, and set her teeth hard, and at length she found her voice. "Yes," she said, "I meant it."
"Well, there is a way," he answered; and he rose from the table, and, moving to the door which led to the main hall and the staircase, he closed it. "There is a way of doing it. But it is not quite easy to explain it to you in a moment. 'Twas a hurried marriage, as you know, and informal, and a marriage only in name. And something has happened since then."
He paused there; she asked in a low tone, "What?"
"Well, it is what took me to Lewes yesterday," he answered. "I should have told you of it then, but I was in doubt how you would take it. And Betty persuaded me not to tell it. The man Hawkesworth----"
He paused, as she rose stiffly from the table. "Have they taken him?" she exclaimed.
"Yes," he said gently. "They took him in hiding near Chichester. But he was ill, dying, it was thought, when they surprised him."
She had a strange prevision. "Of the smallpox?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered. And then, "He died last night," he continued softly. "My dear, let me get you a little cordial."