Part 72 (1/2)

Both men started. Sir Reginald sprang to his feet. ”Mrs. Monck!”

”Yes,” Stella said. She stood a moment framed in the French window, looking at him. Then she stepped forward with outstretched hand. The morning suns.h.i.+ne caught her as she moved. She was very pale and her eyes were deeply shadowed, but she was exceedingly beautiful.

”I heard your voices,” she said, looking at Sir Reginald, while her hand lay in his. ”I didn't mean to listen at first. But I was tempted, because you were talking of--my husband, and--” she smiled at him faintly, ”I fell.”

”I think you were justified,” Sir Reginald said.

”Thank you,” she answered gently. She turned from him to Bernard, and bending kissed him. ”Are you better? Peter told me it wasn't serious. I would have come to you sooner, but I was asleep for a very long time, and afterwards--Everard wanted me.”

”Everard!” he said sharply. ”Is he here?”

”Sit down!” murmured Sir Reginald, drawing forward his chair.

But Stella remained standing, her hand upon Bernard's shoulder. ”Thank you. But I haven't come to stay. Only to tell you--just to tell you--all the things that Bernard couldn't, without betraying his trust.”

”My dear, dear child!” Bernard broke in quickly, but Sir Reginald intervened in the same moment.

”No, no! Pardon me! Let her speak! She wishes to do so, and I--wish to listen.”

Stella's hand pressed a little upon Bernard's shoulder, as though she supported herself thereby.

”It is right that you should know, Sir Reginald,” she said. ”It is only for my sake that it has been kept from you. But I--have travelled the desert too long to mind an extra stone or two by the way. First, with regard to the suspicion which drove him out of the Army. You thought--everyone thought--that he had killed Ralph Dacre up in the mountains. Even I thought so.” Her voice trembled a little. ”And I had less excuse than any one else, for he swore to me that he was innocent--though he would not--could not--tell me the truth of the matter. The truth was simply this. Ralph Dacre was not dead.”

”Ah!” Sir Reginald said softly.

Bernard reached up and strongly grasped the hand that rested upon him.

But he spoke no word.

Stella went on with greater steadiness, her eyes resolutely meeting the shrewd old eyes that watched her. ”He--Everard--came between us because only a fortnight after our marriage he received the news that Ralph had a wife living in England. Perhaps I ought to tell you--though this in no way influenced him--that my marriage to Ralph was a mistake. I married him because I was unhappy, not because I loved him. I sinned, and I have been punished.”

”Poor girl!” said Sir Reginald very gently.

Her eyelids quivered, but she would not suffer them to fall. ”Everard sent him away from me, made him vanish completely, and then came himself to me--he was in native disguise--and told me he was dead. I suppose it was wrong of him. If so, he too has been punished. But he wanted to save my pride. I had plenty of pride in those days. It is all gone now. At least, all I have left is for him--that his honour may be vindicated. I am afraid I am telling the story very badly. Forgive me for taking so long!”

”There is no hurry,” Sir Reginald answered in the same gentle voice.

”And you are telling it very well.”

She smiled again--her faint, sad smile. ”You are very kind. It makes it much easier. You know how clever he is in native disguise. I never recognized him. I came back, as I thought, a widow. And then--it was nearly a year after--I married Everard, because I loved him. It was just before Captain Ermsted's murder. We had to come back here in a hurry because of it. Then when the summer came we had to separate. I went to Bhulwana for the birth of my baby. And while I was there, he heard that Ralph Dacre's wife had died in England only a few days before his marriage to me. That meant of course that I was not Everard's legal wife, that the baby was illegitimate. But--I was very ill at the time--he kept it from me.”

”Of course he did,” said Sir Reginald.

”Of course he did,” said Bernard.

”Yes,” she a.s.sented. ”He couldn't help himself then. But he ought to have told me afterwards--when--when I began to have that horrible suspicion that everyone else had, that he had murdered Ralph Dacre.”

”A difficult point,” said Sir Reginald.

”I told him he was making a mistake,” said Bernard.

Stella glanced down at him. ”It was a mistake,” she said. ”But he made it out of love for me, because he thought--he thought--that my pride was dearer to me than my love. I don't wonder he thought so. I gave him every reason. For I wouldn't listen to him, wouldn't believe him. I sent him away.” Her breath caught suddenly, and she put a quick hand to her throat. ”That is what hurts me most,” she said after a moment,--”just to remember that,--to remember what I made him suffer--how I failed him--when Tommy, even Tommy, believed in him--went after him to tell him so.”