But Denia did not at once respond to the invitation. It was neither shyness nor hesitation that held her back; the former, indeed, was a quality of which she knew nothing; she was merely considering in what terms it behoved her to couch her version of what could no longer be kept back.
"It was my husband who, soon after our marriage introduced Richard Dyson to me," at length she began, her blue eyes fixed calmly on Robert Melray's face. Before long he began to spend three or four evenings a week in the drawing-room, and by the time I had been half a year married it was evident to me that (not to mince my words) he had either fallen in love with me or was wishful of making me believe that he had done so. He was young and handsome and had a certain fascinating way with him; he played and sang charmingly, or so it seemed to me. I liked and respected my husband--no one could help doing that--and I strove to do my duty by him as a true wife should do; but I did not love him. Love is a very different sentiment from that which I experienced for James Melray. Is it, then, greatly to be wondered at if, at times, my heart could not help fluttering a little under the ardent glances of Richard Dyson? But, for all that, when, one day, he ventured to whisper certain words in my ear such as he had no right to whisper in the ear of any married woman, I was not slow in giving him to understand what an egregious piece of folly he had been guilty of. So strongly, indeed, did I resent the liberty he had taken that he never ventured to err in the same way again. And so matters went on as before. I continued to do my duty by my husband and guarded my feelings to the best of my ability; but, having promised that this shall be a full and frank confession, let me at once admit that deep down in my heart a germ of love lay perdu, and that it was only my strong sense of wifely obligation and the remembrance of all I owed my husband, which kept it there, frozen and half torpid, like a bulb buried deep under the snow.
"Such was the state of affairs on Friday, the 18th of September. Richard had gone for his annual holiday about ten days before. Sometimes I felt sad and lonely without him, missing his bright, vivacious talk and those half-veiled glances the meaning of which could be read by me alone; at other times I wished most devoutly that I might never set eyes on him again.
"At eight o'clock that evening I saw my husband off on his way to Mr. Arbour's for his usual rubber of whist. After that I sat down with the intention of writing a long letter to my friend, Mrs. Simpson. I was alone in the little sitting-room at the back of the drawing-room. The servants were all below stairs. Your mother had gone to her own room at the further end of the long corridor, and Miss Armishaw with her. I had got about half-way through my letter when a slight noise caused me to turn my head, and there in the open door-way I beheld Richard Dyson! Next instant he came forward and fell on his knees at my feet. His dress was disordered, his face was as white as that of corpse, while his eyes were charged with horror and fear, the like of which I have never seen in those of anyone else. 'Save me! Save me!' were the first words he gave utterance to.
"I have no wish to weary you, and will relate, as succinctly as possible, the story told me by Richard on that memorable night.
"Lack of funds had brought him back from his holidays two or three days before he was due at business. He had been compelled to leave his luggage in pawn at the seaside hotel where he had been staying. Not wishing it to be known, for private reasons of his own, that he had come back before his time, he had alighted from the train at a station a couple of miles away, and was making his way through some of the back streets to his lodgings, when he came face to face with Mr. Melray. The recognition was mutual. It would seem that Richard had been guilty of something at which my husband had just cause to be offended, but of what nature the something in question was even now I have no knowledge. In any case, Mr. Melray insisted on Richard there and then accompanying him back to his office. Once there, they appear to have got to high words, one thing leading to another, till at length Mr. Melray threatened Richard with some kind of public exposure. There was a struggle for the possession of some papers, and in the result my husband unhappily came by his death. On his knees Richard swore to me by everything he held sacred that it was purely an accident. Well, I believed him. Some people might say that, instead of putting credence in what he told me, I ought there and then to have denounced him as a murderer; but to me it seemed too terrible a thing to credit that he could wilfully have been guilty of such a crime. But, be that as it may, when he appealed to me to save him I felt it impossible to reject his appeal. From Friday night till an early hour on Monday he lay hidden in the lumber-room on the top floor, which is rarely entered from one year's end to another, I supplying him with food meanwhile. On Monday morning he made his appearance at his lodgings, and, later on, at the office, no one suspecting otherwise than that he had just got back from his holidays."
Robert Melray had not interrupted her by a word. He sat for a space after she had done with drawn brows and introverted eyes which saw nothing of what was before them. At length he roused himself with a deep sigh. "That your narrative throws a wholly unexpected light on a mystery which has long perplexed both me and others cannot be denied, he said, and I am obliged to you for the frankness which has at length prompted the telling of it. Still, I altogether fail to reconcile what you have just told me with the details of certain circumstances as set down in your written statement of a fortnight ago."
A short derisive laugh broke from Denia. "My good sir," she said, "seeing that I have just told you the true history of the events of the 18th of September as far as they concern me individually, but one inference can be drawn by you with regard to my so-called statement, namely, that from beginning to end. it was a simple tissue of romance."
Mr. Melray stared at her in wide-eyed amazement. "But surely," he gasped, "you don't mean to say that all which was there stated with reference to Evan Wildash and yourself was----"
"A sheer piece of rigmarole--that and nothing more. I found it impossible to resist the temptation Miss Sudlow was good enough to put in my way. Besides, I had a suspicion, which may or may not have been baseless, that she had been brought to Loudwater House purposely to watch me and spy upon my actions, so that when she gave me a certain story to read, which undoubtedly seemed to embody in rather a startling way a number of details in connection with my husband's death, I decided to accept it as a true narrative, and it was on that assumption that I wrote out my statement. I need hardly add that my object in acting thus was to divert suspicion from the real quarter, and, if it were possible thereby to do so, to bring to an end, once and for ever, the inquiry into the causes of my husband's death."