‘I should much like to know,’ exclaimed Harvey, laying a hand upon her, ‘how you made that astounding discovery.  Do you think they are like me?’

‘The girl is —­ or I thought so.’

‘After you had decided that she must be, no doubt.’  Again he exploded in laughter.  ’And this is the meaning of it all?  This is what you have been fretting over?  For how long?’

Alma brushed away her tears, but gave no answer.

‘And if I am their father,’ he pursued, with resolute mirthfulness, ‘pray, who do you suppose their mother to be?’

Still Alma kept silence, her head bent.

’I’ll warrant I can give you evidence against myself which you hadn’t discovered,’ Rolfe went on —­ ’awful and unanswerable evidence.  It is I who support those children, and pay for their education! —­ it is I, and no other.  See your darkest suspicion confirmed.  If only you had known this for certain!’

‘Why, then, do you do it?’ asked Alma, without raising her eyes.

‘For a very foolish reason:  there was no one else who could or would.’

‘And why did you keep it a secret from me?’

‘This is the blackest part of the whole gloomy affair,’ he answered, with burlesque gravity.  ’It’s in the depraved nature of men to keep secrets from their wives, especially about money.  To tell the truth, I’m hanged if I know why I didn’t tell you before our marriage.  The infamous step was taken not very long before, and I might as well have made a clean breast of it.  Has Mrs. Abbott never spoken to you about her cousin, Wager’s wife?’

‘A word or two.’

’Which you took for artful fiction?  You imagined she had plotted with me to deceive you?  What, in the name of commonsense, is your estimate of Mrs. Abbott’s character?’

Alma drew a deep breath, and looked up into her husband’s face.  ’Still —­ she knew you were keeping it from me, about the money.’

’She had no suspicion of it.  She always wrote to me openly, acknowledging the cheques.  Would it gratify you to look through her letters?’

‘I believe you.’

‘Not quite, I fancy.  Look at me again and say it.’

He raised her head gently.

‘Yes, I believe you —­ it was very silly.’

’It was.  The only piece of downright feminine foolishness I ever knew you guilty of.  But when did it begin?’

Alma had become strangely quiet.  She spoke in a low, tired voice, and sat with head turned aside, resting against the back of the chair; her face was expressionless, her eyelids drooped.  Rolfe had to repeat his question.

‘I hardly know,’ she replied.  ’It must have been when my illness was coming on.’

’So I should think.  It was sheer frenzy.  And now that it’s over, have you still any prejudice against Mrs. Abbott?’

‘No.’

The syllable fell idly from her lips.

’You are tired, dear.  All this sound and fury has been too much for you.  Lie down on the sofa till dinner-time.’