“And the rebellious bride—”
“You realize the identity.”
Simply and with no choosing of words, no rounding of sentences, Jeffray told Wilson the tale of Bess of the Woods, how she had been forced to marry Dan, and of the mystery that appeared to surround her birth. The painter sat hunched up in his chair, sucking at his pipe, and blowing out clouds of smoke. His rugged face was grave and sympathetically attentive; he grunted expressively from time to time, watching Jeffray with his keen and humorous blue eyes. The lad had developed, strengthened marvellously in these few weeks. Wilson had not yet escaped from the astonishment with which he had watched Lot Hardacre go down before Jeffray’s rapid passes.
There was a short silence at the end of Jeffray’s confessional. Wilson sat motionless in his chair, pulling at his pipe and staring out of the window.
“Well, sir, well?” he said at last.
Jeffray sprang up and began to pace the room. The telling of Bess’s story seemed to have rendered the past more vivid and real to him, the passion of the present more flowing and tumultuous.
“You are wondering what I am going to do?” he asked.
“Exactly, sir, exactly,” said Wilson, bluntly, yet without cynicism.
Jeffray stayed his striding from wall to wall, and stood with one hand gripping the back of the painter’s chair.
“The woman’s life is in danger,” he said.