Gabriel Cassilis nodded gratefully to Phillis.
"Then Mr. Cassilis," Colquhoun began, "it is right that you should know all. Six years ago I followed Victoria Pengelley into Scotland. We were married privately at a registrar's office under assumed names. If you ever want to know where and by what names, you have only to ask me, and I will tell you. There were reasons, she said,—I never quite understood what they were, but she chose to be a fille romanesque at the time,—why the marriage should be kept secret. After the wedding ceremony—such as it was—she left the office with her maid, who was the only witness, and returned to the friends with whom she was staying. I met her every day; but always in that house and among other people. A few days passed. She would not, for some whim of her own, allow the marriage to be disclosed. We quarrelled for that, and other reasons—my fault, possibly. Good God! what a honeymoon! To meet the woman you love—your bride—in society; if for half an hour alone, then in the solitude of open observation; to quarrel like people who have been married for forty years—— Well, perhaps it was my fault. On the fifth day we agreed to let things be as if they had never been. I left my bride, who was not my wife, in anger. We used bitter words—perhaps I the bitterest. And when we parted, I bade her go back to her old life as if nothing had been promised on either side. I said she should be free; that I would never claim the power and the rights given me by a form of words; that she might marry again; that, to leave her the more free, I would go away and never return till she was married, or till she gave me leave. I was away for four years; and then I saw the announcement of her marriage in the paper, and I returned. That is the bare history, Mr. Cassilis. Since my return, on my honour as a gentleman, you have had no cause for jealousy in my own behaviour towards—your wife, not mine. Remember, Mr. Cassilis, whatever else may be said, she never was my wife. And yet, in the eye of the law, I suppose she is my wife still. And with all my heart I pity you."
He stopped, and looked at the victim of the crime. Gabriel Cassilis was staring helplessly from him to Phillis. Did he understand? Not entirely, I think. Yet the words which he had heard fell upon his heart softly, and soothed him in his trouble. At last his eyes rested on Phillis, as if asking, as men do in times of trouble, for the quick comprehension of a woman.
"What can I do, Mr. Cassilis?" asked the girl. "If you cannot speak, will you make some sign? Any little sign that I can understand?"
She remembered that among her lesson-books was a dictionary. She put that into his hand, and asked him to show her in the dictionary what he wished to say.
He took the book in his trembling hands, turned over the leaves, and presently, finding the page he wanted, ran his fingers down the lines till they rested on a word.
Phillis read it, spelling it out in her pretty little school-girl fashion.
"S, I, si; L, E, N, C, E, lence—silence. Is that what you wish to say, Mr. Cassilis?"
He nodded.
"Silence," repeated Lawrence. "For all our sakes it is the best—the only thing. Phillis, tell no one what you have heard; not even Agatha; not even Jack Dunquerque. Or, if you tell Jack Dunquerque, send him to me directly afterwards. Do you promise, child?"