“A great deal,” said the Canon.
Where he stood in the dusk of the doorway, the shadow accentuated the stern lines of his face and deepened the sombreness of his glance. His brows were bent in perplexities of repugnance. It was horrible to demand of her such explanations. To Yvonne’s scared fancy, his brows seemed bent in accusation. That was the pity of it. For a few seconds they looked at one another, the Canon severely, Yvonne in throbbing suspense.
“What?” she asked at length.
He paused for a moment, then threw his hat and the crumpled Visitors’ List on to the table and plunged into the heart of things—but not before Yvonne had glanced at the paper with a sudden pang of intuition.
“Emmeline has discovered, Yvonne, that the man—”
He got no further. Yvonne rushed to him with a cry of pain, clung to his arm, broke into wild words.
“Don’t say any more—don’t—don’t. Spare me—for pity’s sake. I did not want you to know. I tried to keep it from you, Everard! Don’t look at me like that?”
Her voice ended in a note of fright. For the Canon’s face had grown ashen and wore an expression of incredulous horror. He shook her from him.
“Do you mean that this is true? That you met your first husband this morning?”
“Yes,” said she, with quivering lips. Question and answer were too categorical for misunderstanding. For a moment he struggled against the overwhelming.