“Quite true; but Ethelwynn is not one of those. She’s careful to preserve her own position in the eyes of her lover, knowing quite well that to tell the truth would be to expose her own baseness. A man may overlook many offences in the woman he loves, but this particular one of which she is guilty a man never forgives.”
His words went deep into my heart. Was not this further proof that the crime—for undoubtedly a crime had been accomplished in that house at Kew—had been committed by the hand of the woman I so fondly loved? All was so amazing, so utterly bewildering, that I stood there concealed by the tree, motionless as though turned to stone.
There was a motive wanting in it all. Yet I ask you who read this narrative of mine if, like myself, you would not have been staggered into dumbness at seeing and hearing a man whom you had certified to be dead, moving and speaking, and, moreover, in his usual health?
“He loves her!” his wife exclaimed, speaking of me. “He would forgive her anything. My own opinion is that if we would be absolutely secure it is for us to heal the breach between them.”
He remained thoughtful for a few moments, apparently in doubt as to the wisdom of acting upon her suggestion. Surely in the situation was an element of humour, for, happily, I was being forearmed.
“It might possibly be good policy,” he remarked at last. “If we could only bring them together again he would cease his constant striving to solve the enigma. We know well that he can never do that; nevertheless his constant efforts are as annoying as they are dangerous.”
“That’s just my opinion. There is danger to us in his constant inquiries, which are much more ingenious and careful than we imagine.”
“Well, my child,” he said, “you’ve stuck to me in this in a manner that few women would have dared. If you really think it necessary to bring Boyd and Ethelwynn together again you must do it entirely alone, for I could not possibly appear on the scene. He must never meet me, or the whole thing would be revealed.”
“For your sake I am prepared to make the attempt,” she said. “The fact of being Ethelwynn’s sister gives me freedom to speak my mind to him.”
“And to tell him some pretty little fiction about her?” he added, laughing.