“I came to seek you,” I said, looking earnestly into her pretty face.
“For what reason?”
“Because by your aid alone can I regain my lost happiness,” I answered in deep earnestness. “Once, before you left London, you made certain allegations against Ella; but you failed to substantiate them, or to fulfil your promise in exchange for your passport.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“She is now my wife, and I have come to hear the truth from your own lips, Sonia.”
“Your wife!” she gasped, glaring at me. “Has—has she actually dared to marry you?”
“Yes,” I answered. “She has dared, because she loves me.”
She remained silent, with knit brows, for a long time engrossed in thought.
Then briefly I told her how, after her departure, we had married, and related how suspicion had been aroused within me by her clandestine meetings with Cecil Bingham, her flight, and my subsequent discovery of her true position.
“Then you are aware who she really is,” she observed slowly at last. “That she has dared to enter into a matrimonial alliance with you is certainly astounding. Indeed, it is incredible.”