Page:The Fruit of the Tree (Wharton 1907).djvu/564

Rh He made an impatient gesture. "Haven't I told you? She found that her accomplice meant to speak, and rushed to town to forestall him."

Mrs. Ansell reflected. "But why—with his place at Saint Christopher's secured—did Dr. Wyant choose this time to threaten her—if, as you imagine, he's an accomplice?"

"Because he's a drug-taker, and she didn't wish him to have the place."

"She didn't wish it? But that does not look as if she were afraid. She had only to hold her tongue!"

Mr. Langhope laughed sardonically. "It's not quite so simple. Amherst was coming to town to tell me."

"Ah—he knows?"

"Yes—and she preferred that I should have her version first."

"And what is her version?"

The furrows of misery deepened in Mr. Langhope's face. "Maria—don't ask too much of me! I can't go over it again. She says she wanted to spare my child—she says the doctors were keeping her alive, torturing her uselessly, as a. . .a sort of scientific experiment. . .She forced on me the hideous details. ."

Mrs. Ansell waited a moment.

"Well! May it not be true?"

"Wyant s version is different. He says Bessy would have recovered—he says Garford thought so too." [ 548 ]