His arms slipped round me and he held me tightly.

“I will tell you what happened, but it isn’t going to make any difference. She is silenced. I could arrange that, and I did.”

“Silenced!” I cried in horror.

“I see I must tell you everything. A few days ago I had a letter from her.”

“I knew something had happened,” I cried.

“Oh, Crispin … why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t. I feared what this would mean. I am determined that at all costs I will not lose you. Frederica, you must not leave me. She wanted money. She always wanted money. That is why it is an easy way out … to silence her, to keep her quiet … to stop her preventing us”

“But she is there. She is your wife.”

“She read the announcement of our engagement. That is what started it.

But for that she would never have known. I would have gone on believing her dead. None of this would have happened. When I received the letter I did not know what to do. “

“Why did you not tell me? I want to know everything.”

“I couldn’t tell you. I had to make sure that everything could go ahead as we planned. It was a mistake on my part to see her in Devizes. It was too near here. I ought to have thought of that. I arranged to meet her in that hotel. It was terrible. I hated her. I hated myself for ever being involved with her. I was so thankful when she left me, and when I heard she was killed I naturally thought I would never see her again. It was the end of the most idiotic mistake a man ever made.”

“But she was not dead.”

“No. She explained all that.”

“But you had identified her after the accident.”

“There was a ring and a fur stole which I had given her.

The girl I saw was badly injured facially. I could not have said she was really Kate, but the ring and the stole seemed to clinch the matter. They were considered adequate identification. “

“Crispin, was it because you wanted to be sure?”

“I felt certain. The ring and the stole … they were enough. She told me she had sold the ring and the stole to a fellow actress. A girl who had left home a year or so before to try her luck in the theatre. It seemed that either she had no family or they lost touch.

Her death was unnoticed. Kate had seen the account of the death of my wife in the newspaper and had decided to do nothing about it. No doubt she thought she might make profitable use of it at some time. That was the way her mind worked. So when she saw the announcement of our engagement in the paper she decided to use the situation to her advantage. “

“And you, Crispin?”

“One thing I was certain of. I was not going to let her spoil my life again. I arranged to meet her at the hotel in Devizes. She was there.

God, how I hated her! She laughed at my dismay. She had a way of laughing which made me want to kill her. She thought she had caught me. She said she would never agree to a divorce and that if I tried that line, she would fight with all her might against me. I saw that there was only one way to deal with her. I would give her money to go away and never come near me again. “

“You believed she would do that!”

“I told her that if she ever came back I would call the police and she would be charged with blackmail.”

“And you really thought that would stop her?”

“I think it might.”

“But if you are ready to submit to blackmail once, why should you not be again?”

“I know how to deal with her.”

“Crispin, don’t you see, this is wrong?”

“What else is there to do?”

“To accept the truth, I suppose.”

“You know what that would mean?”

“Yes, I do. But it is here. It is no use pretending it isn’t. She is not dead. You have actually seen her.”

“She has gone away. She assures me she is going to Australia She says I shall never hear from her again.”

“You believe that!”

“I want to.”

“But you can’t believe it because you want to. She’s a blackmailer and you have given way to blackmail. Don’t you see, if you went through a form of marriage with me it could be no true marriage. She would know it. She would be back … with an even greater reason for black mail.”

“I’ll deal with her if she does. I have found you. For the first time in my life I have been happy. I know what I want for the rest of my life. I love you, Frederica, and I will do anything just anything to keep you.”

I was shaken by the violence of his emotion. I was bemused by what I had heard. I rejoiced in the power of his love for me but I felt more strongly than ever that I did not know him. He was revealing a side of his character which I had not known. I felt now, as I had before, that much was hidden from me.

I said: “You were going through with our marriage in spite of this?”

“Yes,” he said.

“And you were not going to tell me?”

“I could not risk telling you. I could not be sure what you would do.

I love you. I want you and I did not think beyond that. You will be my wife in every way . no matter what ceremony. That is words. My feelings for you go deeper than any words. “

I could only say: “You would have kept it from me.”

“Only because I was afraid you might not agree.”

“I think,” I said slowly, ‘that is what shocks me more than any of this. I feel there are secrets which I do not know. “

“Secrets?” he said with alarm in his voice, which made my heart leap in fear.

“Crispin,” I said, ‘why don’t you tell me everything? Just as you have told me this? “

He said: There is nothing more to tell. “

I did not speak, but I thought: You have told me this because you could do nothing else. Aunt Sophie saw you and if she had not I should not have known. I should have gone through a form of marriage with you. And you would have let me do that. You would have deceived me as far as that.

“Frederica,” he was saying, ‘my darling, I love you. You know how much. It sounds so inadequate. I want you with me night and day . for ever. There is nothing nothing on earth which can hurt me if I am with you. “

“I feel stunned,” I murmured, ‘bewildered. “

“It is the shock, but you will not have to worry. I shall look after everything. We’ll tell no one about this. It’s no one’s affair but ours. It concerns only us. She will go away and if she ever comes back I shall know how to deal with her.”

I could only think: His mind is full of secrets. He would have kept this from me. If we are to be close, how could this be?

I did not know what to say. I must get away, I must think. Nothing was as I had believed it to be.

One thought kept hammering in my brain: he would have married me and said nothing . knowing this. It would have been another secret in our lives.

Another secret? What was the other?

I thought of Gaston Marchmont walking into the shrubbery, lying dead there, killed by a gun from the St. Aubyn gunroom.

He would talk to me of his love. It was love which had made him act as he did. I wanted that love. I rejoiced in the depth of it. I wanted to believe that it would be there for ever. I dared not.

I must get away. I must think ration ally. There were many questions I must ask myself.

“Crispin,” I said, trying to speak calmly, “I have to think about this. It has been a great shock. I must go home.”

“Of course, my darling,” he said.

“You must not worry. You are going to leave everything to me.” He held me fast and kissed me tenderly.

“I’ll take you home.”

“No, no … I’ll go back alone.”

“It’s late. I shall come with you. The rain is teeming down. I’ll get the carriage. I’ll drive you back.”

I let him go. From the porch I watched him and as soon as he disappeared, I ran out.

He was right. The rain was falling heavily. There was thunder overhead: lightning streaked across the sky. And I ran. My hair was falling about my face a damp cloud; my clothes were soaked. I had not stopped to put much on under my coat. I was unaware of my condition. I could only think that a chance happening in Devizes had revealed something of which I should have been kept in ignorance though it concerned me deeply.

He would not have told me, I kept saying to myself.

I reached The Rowans where Aunt Sophie was waiting for me. She looked very frightened.

“You’re soaked to the skin,” she cried.

“Come along in quickly. You shouldn’t have gone.”

She was hustling me to my room, getting off my wet clothes, running off and coming back with towels and blankets.

She roused Lily.

“A fire,” she commanded.

“God help us!” said Lily.

“What is all this in aid of?”

“She’s been out in the rain.”

“God give me strength!” prayed Lily.

I was shivering. I was not sure whether it was due to the cold. I suppose I had never in my life faced such a shock.

They brought me hot-water bottles. A fire was soon blazing in the grate. Blankets were piled on my bed and Lily was trying to force hot milk down my throat.

I pushed it away. I could only lie there shivering.

They were up with me all night, hovering about me and in the morning they sent for the doctor.

I was quite ill, he said. I had caught a bad chill. We must be careful that it did not turn into congestion of the lungs.

My illness was, in a way, not without its advantages. My mind was in a turmoil. I was often delirious. I thought I was married to Crispin but I could not be happy. I had seen the shadow of a woman whom I had never met but who was clear to me; she hovered continually in the background. I might be married to Crispin but I was not his wife. She was his wife an ever-menacing figure. I longed to be with him. I wanted to say, as he did, let’s forget she came back. If Aunt Sophie had not been in Devizes on that day it would have happened differently. I should not have known anything about it.