Your father may give this affair what gloss he pleases, but
you must know as well as I do what rumour and report are saying, so we
might as well speak plainly. Is it the fact that the doctor has made
certain statements about your own condition, and that your father is
giving this entertainment because . . . well, because he is expecting an
heir?"
To my husband's astonishment I answered:
"Yes."
"So you admit it? Then perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me how that
condition came about?"
Knowing he needed no explanation, I made no answer.
"Can't you speak?" he said.
But still I remained silent.
"You know what our relations have been since our marriage, so I ask you
again how does that condition come about?"
I was now trembling more than ever, but a kind of forced courage came to
me and I said:
"Why do you ask? You seem to know already."
"I know what anonymous letters have told me, if that's what you mean.
But I'm your husband and have a right to know from _you_. How does your
condition come about, I ask you?"
I cannot say what impulse moved me at that moment unless it was the
desire to make a clean breast and an end of everything, but, stepping to
my desk, I took out of a drawer the letter which Price had intercepted
and threw it on the table.
Pages:
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