“Then he is already married, perhaps?”
She was silent, and glancing at her I saw that tears stood in her magnificent eyes. She was thinking of him, without a doubt.
I recollected those words penned by the dead man; that allegation that she was fooling me. Yes. What he said was correct. The scales had now fallen from my eyes. I read the truth in her white countenance, that face so very beautiful, but, alas! so false.
Who was Nello, the man with whom she corresponded by means of that cipher—the man she trusted so implicitly? Was he identical with Arthur Rumbold? Had she killed the writer of that extraordinary letter because he knew the truth—because she was in terror of exposure and ruin?
My knowledge of Rumbold had entirely upset all her calculations. In those moments of her hesitancy and confusion she became a changed woman. Her admission had been accompanied by a firm defiance that utterly astounded me.
I noticed how agitated she had become. Her small hands were trembling; and she was now white to the lips. Yet she was still determined not to reveal her secret.
“Ah! you can never know, Wilfrid, what I have suffered—what I am suffering now,” she said in a deep intense voice, as we stood there together in the gardens. “You have thought me gay and careless, and you’ve often told me that I was like a butterfly. Yes, I admit it—I admit all my defects. When I was old enough to leave the schoolroom, society attracted me. I saw Cynthia, the centre of a smart set, courted, flattered, and admired, and like every other girl, I was envious. I vied with her successes, until I, too, became popular. And yet what did popularity and smartness mean? Ah! I can only think of the past with disgust.” Then, with a sigh, she added, “You, of course, cannot believe it, Wilfrid, but I am now a changed woman.”
“I do believe you, Tibbie,” was my blank reply, for want of something else to say.
“Yes,” she went on, “I see the folly of it all now, the emptiness, the soul-killing wear and tear, the disgraceful shams and mean subterfuges. The woman who has success in our set stands alone, friendless, with a dozen others constantly trying to hurl her from her pedestal, and ever ready with bitter tongues to propagate grave insinuations and scandal. It is woman to woman; and the feuds are always deadly. I’m tired of it all, and have left it, I hope, for ever.”
“Then it was some adventure in that gay circle, I take it, that is responsible for your present position?” I said slowly.