He was very pale. The look of hardness, almost of brutality, which
pierced his manner at normal moments had deepened, and I could see at a
glance that he was nervous. His monocle dropped of itself from his slow
grey eyes, and the white fat fingers which replaced it trembled.
Without shaking hands or offering any other sort of salutation he
plunged immediately into the matter that was uppermost in his mind.
"I am still at a loss to account for this affair of your father's," he
said. "Of course I know what it is supposed to be--a reception in honour
of our home-coming. That explanation may or may not be sufficient for
these stupid islanders, but it's rather too thin for me. Can you tell me
what your father means by it?"
I knew he knew what my father meant, so I said, trembling like a sheep
that walks up to a barking dog:
"Hadn't you better ask that question of my father himself?"
"Perhaps I should if he were here, but he isn't, so I ask you. Your
father is a strange man. There's no knowing what crude things he will
not do to gratify his primitive instincts. But he does not spend five or
ten thousand pounds for nothing. He isn't a fool exactly."
"Thank you," I said. I could not help it. It was forced out of me.
My husband flinched and looked at me. Then the bully in him, which
always lay underneath, came uppermost.
"Look here, Mary," he said. "I came for an explanation and I intend to
have one. Your father may give this affair what gloss he pleases, but
you must know as well as I do what rumour and report are saying, so we
might as well speak plainly. Is it the fact that the doctor has made
certain statements about your own condition, and that your father is
giving this entertainment because . . . well, because he is expecting an
heir?"
To my husband's astonishment I answered:
"Yes."
"So you admit it? Then perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me how that
condition came about?"
Knowing he needed no explanation, I made no answer.
"Can't you speak?" he said.
But still I remained silent.
"You know what our relations have been since our marriage, so I ask you
again how does that condition come about?"
I was now trembling more than ever, but a kind of forced courage came to
me and I said:
"Why do you ask? You seem to know already."
"I know what anonymous letters have told me, if that's what you mean.
But I'm your husband and have a right to know from _you_. How does your
condition come about, I ask you?"
I cannot say what impulse moved me at that moment unless it was the
desire to make a clean breast and an end of everything, but, stepping to
my desk, I took out of a drawer the letter which Price had intercepted
and threw it on the table.
He took it up and read it, with the air of one to whom the contents were
not news, and then asked how I came by it.
"It was taken out of the hands of a woman who was in the act of posting
it," I said. "She confessed that it was one of a number of such letters
which had been inspired, if not written, by your friend Alma."
"My friend Alma!"
"Yes, your friend Alma."
His face assumed a frightful expression and he said:
"So that's how it is to be, is it? In spite of the admission you have
just made you wish to imply that this" (holding out the letter) "is a
trumped-up affair, and that Alma is at the bottom of it. You're going to
brazen it out, are you, and shelter your condition under your position
as a married woman?"
I was so taken by surprise by this infamous suggestion that I could not
speak to deny it, and my husband went on to say:
"But it doesn't matter a rush to me who is at the bottom of the
accusation contained in this letter. There's only one thing of any
consequence--is it true?"
My head was reeling, my eyes were dim, my palms were moist, I felt as if
I were throwing myself over a precipice but I answered:
"It is perfectly true."