'No! She couldn't make me _believe_ it. But the artful devil had such a way of talking----'

'I understand. You didn't know whether to believe or not. Just tell me, please, what proof she offered you.'

Hugh hung his head.

'She had heard you talking--in the house--on a certain----'

He looked up timidly, and met a flash of derisive scorn.

'She heard me talking? Hugh, I really don't see much art in this. You seem to have been wrought upon rather easily. It never occurred to you, I suppose, to ask for a precise date?'

He mentioned the day, and Sibyl, turning her head a little, appeared to reflect.

'It's unfortunate; I remember nothing whatever of that date. I'm afraid, Hugh, that I couldn't possibly prove an alibi.'

Her smiling sarcasm made the man wince. His broad shoulders shrank together; he stood in an awkward, swaying posture.

'Dear, I told her she lied!'

'That was very courageous. But what came next? You had the happy idea of going to Wimbledon to make personal inquiries?'

'Try to put yourself in my place, Sibyl,' he pleaded. 'Remember all the circ.u.mstances. Can't you see the danger of such a lie as that? I went home, hoping to find you there. But you had gone, and n.o.body knew where--you wouldn't be back that night. A telegram had called you away, I was told. When I asked where you told the cabman to drive you to--the post-office.'

'Oh, it looked very black!--yes, yes, I quite understand. The facts are so commonplace that I'm really ashamed to mention them. At luncheon-time came an urgent telegram from Weymouth. I sent no reply then, because I thought I knew that you were on your way. But when I was ready to start, it occurred to me that I should save you trouble by wiring that I should join you as soon as possible--so I drove to the post-office before going to Paddington.--Well, you rushed off to Wimbledon?'

'Not till later, and because I was suffering d.a.m.nably. If I hadn't--been what would it have meant? When a man thinks as much of his wife as I do of you----'

'He has a right to imagine anything of her,' she interrupted in a changed tone, gently reproachful, softening to tenderness. A Singularity of Sibyl's demeanour was that she seemed utterly forgetful of the dire position in which her husband stood. One would have thought that she had no concern beyond the refutation of an idle charge, which angered her indeed, but afforded scope for irony, possibly for play of wit. For the moment, Hugh himself had almost forgotten the worst; but he was bidden to proceed, and again his heart sank.

'I went there in the evening. Redgrave happened to be outside--in that veranda of his. I saw him as I came near in the dark, and I fancied that--that he had been talking to someone in the room--through the folding windows. I went up to him quickly, and as soon as he saw me he pulled the window to. After that--I only remember that I was raving mad. He seemed to want to stop me, and I struck at him--and that was the end.'

Sibyl shuddered.

'You went into the room?'

'Yes. No one was there.'

Both kept silence. Sibyl had become very grave, and was thinking intently. Then, with a few brief questions, vigilant, precise, she learnt all that had taken place between Hugh and Mrs. Maskell, between Hugh and the doctor; heard of the woman's disappearance, and of Mrs Fenimore's arrival on the scene.

'What shall you do now?'

'Go back and give myself up. What else _can_ I do?'

'And tell everything--as you have told it to me?'

Hugh met her eyes and moved his arms in a gesture of misery.

'No! I will think of something. He is dead, and can't contradict; and the woman will hide--trust her. Your name shan't come into it at all. I owe you that, Sibyl. I'll find some cause for a quarrel with him. Your name shan't be spoken.'

She listened, her eyes down, her forehead lined in thought.

'I know what!' Hugh exclaimed, with gloomy resolve. 'That woman--of course, there'll be a mystery, and she'll be searched for. Why'--he bl.u.s.tered against his shame--'why shouldn't she be the cause of it?

Yes, that would do.'

His hoa.r.s.e laugh caused a tremor in Sibyl; she rose and stepped close to him, and laid a hand upon his shoulder.

'So far you have advised yourself. Will you let me advise you now, dear?'

'Wouldn't that seem likely?'

'I think not. And if it _did_--what is the result? You will be dealt with much more severely. Don't you see that?'

'What's that to me? What do I care so long as you are out of the vile business? You will have no difficulties. Your mother's money; and then Mackintosh----'

'And is that all?' asked Sibyl, with a look which seemed to wonder profoundly. 'Am I to think only of my own safety?'

'It's all my cursed fault--just because I'm a fierce, strong brute, who ought to be anywhere but among civilised people. I've killed the man who meant me nothing but kindness. Am I going to drag _your_ name into the mud--to set people grinning and winking----'

'Be quiet, Hugh, and listen. I have a much clearer head than yours, poor boy. There's only one way of facing this scandal, and that is to tell everything. For one thing, I shall not let you shield that woman--we shall catch her yet. I shall not let you disgrace yourself by inventing squalid stories. Don't you see, too, that the disgrace would be shared by--by the dead man? Would that be right? And another thing--if shame comes upon you, do you think I have no part in it? We have to face it out with the truth.'

'You don't know what that means,' he answered, with a groan. 'You don't know the world.'

Sibyl did not smile, but her lips seemed only to check themselves when the smile was half born.

'I know enough of it, Hugh, to despise it; and I know you much better than you know yourself. You are not one of the men who can tell lies and make them seem the truth. I don't think my name will suffer. I shall stand by you from first to last. The real true story can't possibly be improved upon. That woman had every motive for deceiving you, and her disappearance is all against her. You have to confess your hot-headedness--that can't be helped. You tell everything--even down to the mistake about the telegram. I shall go with you to the police-station; I shall be at the inquest; I shall be at the court.

It's the only chance.'

'Good G.o.d! how can I let you do this?'

'You had rather, then, that I seemed to hide away? You had rather set people thinking that there is coldness between us? We must go up tonight. Look out the trains, quick.'

'But your mother, Sibyl----'

'She is dead; she cares nothing. I have to think of my husband.'

Hugh caught her and crushed her in his arms.

'My darling, worse than killing a man who never harmed me was to think wrong of you!'

Her face had grown very pale. She closed her eyes, smiled faintly as she leaned her head against him, and of a sudden burst into tears.

CHAPTER 14

'It shows one's ignorance of such matters,' said Harvey Rolfe, with something of causticity in his humour, when Alma came home after midnight. 'I should have thought that, by way of preparing for tomorrow, you would have quietly rested today.'