Page:Burton Stevenson--The marathon mystery.djvu/313

Rh he intended to buy a plantation at Martinique and make that his home. In February, we learned that the Centaur had been lost, with all on board. After eight years, it seemed certain that he was dead, and Edith felt free to marry again.”

“Was Mr. Delroy informed of this early indiscretion?”

“Certainly—and forgave it, as any good man would.”

“Pardon me for asking the question, Miss Croydon; but it was necessary. When was it you first learned that Tremaine was still alive?”

“One night nearly two months ago, Edith brought his letter to me. She was wild, distracted, ready to kill herself—that is what I have feared every day since. She loves Mr. Delroy, Mr. Godfrey; and yet she believed herself the wife of another man. He demanded that she meet him in that apartment house. I knew she could not bear such a meeting, and yet he must be seen. I offered to go in her stead; I had some wild idea of appealing to his better nature, of persuading him”

She stopped, silenced by her own emotion.

“That, of course, would not have altered the fact that your sister was his wife,” observed Godfrey.

“No; that was the terrible part of it; nothing could alter that. There must, of course, be a separation; but we thought we would solve that problem after we had settled the other. So I went. He opened the door for me. I had never seen him, and I confess his appearance and manner were not at all what I expected. He did not look in the least like a scoundrel,