’That was what Miss Morrison wished to ask you.  She says that when you and she last met you were not on very good terms; she shrank, therefore, from addressing you.  But she had a respect for your wife—­she wished to know what had become of her—­and her curiosity impelled her to speak to us.  She seems to have been in Buenos Ayres for many years.  This year she returned—­as governess—­with the family of a French engineer, who have taken an apartment in Versailles.  She first saw you in the street nearly a month ago.’

Fenwick had dropped into a chair, his face in his hands.  As Welby ceased speaking, he looked up.

‘And she said nothing about my wife’s where-abouts?’

‘Nothing.  She knows nothing.’

‘Nor of why she left me?’

Welby hesitated.

‘Miss Morrison seems to have her own ideas as to that.’

‘Where is she?’ Fenwick rose hurriedly.

‘Rue des Ecuries, 27.  Naturally, you can’t see her to-night.’

’No’—­said Fenwick, sitting down again, like a man in a dream—­’no.  Did she say anything else?’

‘She mentioned something about a debt you owed her,’ said Welby, coldly—­’some matter that she had only just discovered.  I had no concern with that.’

Fenwick’s face, which had become deathly pale, was suddenly overspread with a rush of crimson.  More almost than by the revelation of his long deception as to his wife was he humiliated and tortured by these words relating to his debt to Morrison on Welby’s lips.  This successful rival, this fine gentleman!—­admitted to his sordid affairs.  He rose uncertainly, pulling himself passionately together.

’Now that she has reappeared, I shall pay my debt to Miss Morrison—­if it exists,’ he said, haughtily; ’she need be in no fear as to that.  Well, now then’—­he leaned heavily on the mantelpiece, his face still twitching—­’you know, Mr. Welby—­by this accident—­the secret of my life.  My wife left me—­for the maddest, emptiest reasons—­and she took our child with her.  I did everything I could to discover them.  It was all in vain—­and if Miss Morrison cannot enlighten me, I am as much in the dark to-night as I was yesterday, whether my wife is alive—­or dead.  Is there anything more to be said?’

‘By God, yes!’ cried Welby, with a sudden gesture of passion, approaching Fenwick.  ‘There is everything to be said!’

Fenwick was silent.  Their eyes met.

‘When you first made acquaintance with Lord Findon,’ said Welby, controlling himself, ’you made him—­you made all of us—­believe that you were an unmarried man?’

’I did.  It was the mistake—­the awkwardness of a moment.  I hadn’t your easy manners!  I was a raw country fellow—­and I hadn’t the courage, the mere self-possession, to repair it.’

‘You let Madame de Pastourelles sit to you,’ said Welby, steadily—­’week after week, month after month—­you accepted her kindness—­you became her friend.  Later on, you allowed her to advise you—­write to you—­talk to you about marrying, when your means should be sufficient—­without ever allowing her to guess for a moment that you had already a wife and child!’