Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/563

Rh killed her deliberately. Don't look at me as if I were a madman. She sat in that chair you're in when she told me."

"Justine? Has she been here today?" Mrs. Ansell paused in a painful effort to readjust her thoughts. "But why did she tell you?"

"That's simple enough. To prevent Wyant's doing it."

"Oh——" broke from his hearer, in a long sigh of fear and intelligence. Mr. Langhope looked at her with a smile of miserable exultation.

"You knew—you suspected all along?—But now you must speak out!" he exclaimed with a sudden note of command.

She sat motionless, as if trying to collect herself. "I know nothing—I only meant—why was this never known before?"

He was upon her at once. "You think—because they understood each other? And now there's been a break between them? He wanted too big a share of the spoils? Oh, it's all so abysmally vile!"

He covered his face with a shaking hand, and Mrs. Ansell remained silent, plunged in a speechless misery of conjecture. At length she regained some measure of her habitual composure, and leaning forward, with her eyes on his face, said in a quiet tone: "If I am to help you, you must try to tell me just what has happened." [ 547 ]