“Mostly.”
“I was in London very often. I have seen your name in the papers dozens of times as giving great official receptions and entertainments, yet I confess I never, for a moment, dreamed that the great Countess Bracondale and my wife, Jean, were one and the same person.”
She shrank at the word “wife.” That surely was the most evil day in all her life. She was wondering how best to end that painful interview—how to solve the tragic difficulty which had now arisen—how best to hide her dread secret from Bracondale.
“Well,” she said at last, “though you married me, Ralph, you never had a spark of affection for me. Do you recollect the last night that I was beneath your roof—your confession that you were a thief, and how you raised your hand against me because I begged you not to run into danger. How——?”
“Enough!” he interrupted roughly. “The past is dead and gone. I was a fool then.”
“But I remember it all too well, alas!” she said. “I remember how I loved you, and how full and bitter was my disillusionment.”
“And what do you intend doing now?” he asked defiantly.
“Nothing,” was her reply. Truth to tell, she was nonplussed. She saw no solution of the ghastly problem.
“But I want money,” he declared, fiercely.