which I
have made previous allusion: how Phyllis, as her father's secretary,
had opened a letter which had frightened her; how her father's crafty
face had frightened her still more; how she had run to Betty for the
easing of her heart. And this letter was from Leonard Boyce. "I cannot
afford one penny more," so the letter ran, according to Betty's
recollection of Phyllis's recollection, "but if you remain loyal to our
agreement, you will not regret it. If ever I hear of your coupling my
name with that of Miss Fenimore, I'll kill you. I am a man of my word."
I think Betty crystallised Phyllis's looser statement. But the exact
wording was immaterial. Here was Boyce branding himself with complicity
in the tragedy of Althea, and paying Gedge to keep it dark. Like Sir
Anthony, Betty remembered trivial things that assumed grave
significance. There was no room for doubt. Catastrophe following on his
villainy had kept Boyce away from Wellingsford, had terrified him out
of his engagement. And so her heart had grown bitter against him. You
may ask why her knowledge of the world had not led her to suspect
blacker wrong; for a man does not pay blackmail because he has led a
romantic girl into a wrong notion of the extent of his affection. My
only answer is that Betty was Betty, clean-hearted and clean-souled
like the young Artemis she resembled.

And now she proclaimed that he had expiated his offence. She proclaimed
her renewed and passionate interest in the man. I saw that deep down in
her heart she had always loved him.

After telling me about Phyllis, she returned to the point where she had
broken off. She supposed that Gedge had been talking all over the place.

"I don't think so, dear," said I. "So far as I know he has only spoken,
first to Randall Holmes--that was what made him break away from Gedge,
whose society he had been cultivating for other reasons than those I
imagined (you remember telling me Phyllis's sorrowful little tale last
year?)." She nodded. "And secondly to Sir Anthony and myself, a few
hours before the Reception."

She clenched her fists and broke out again. "The devil! The incarnate
devil! And Sir Anthony?"

"Pretended to treat Gedge's story as a lie, threw into the fire without
reading it an incriminating letter--possibly the letter that Phyllis
saw, ordered Gedge out of the house and, like a great gentleman, went
through the ceremony."

"Does Leonard know?"

"Not that I'm aware of," said I.