"
"How did Pritchard find out?"
"I know nothing about it," Tavernake replied. "I only know that
he peered through the latticework and saw you sitting there at
supper."
She smiled weakly.
"It must have been rather a shock to him," she said. "He has
been convinced for the last six months that I murdered Wenham, or
got rid of him by some means or other. Help me up."
She staggered to her feet. Tavernake assisted her to an easy
chair. Then Pritchard came in.
"He is quite safe," he announced, "sitting on the edge of the
bath playing with a doll."
She shivered.
"What is he doing with it?" she asked.
"Showing me exactly, with a shawl pin, where he meant to have
stabbed you," Pritchard answered, drily. "Now, my dear lady," he
continued, "it seems to me that I have done you one injustice, at
any rate. I certainly thought you'd helped to relieve the world
of that young person. Where did he come from? Perhaps you can
tell me that."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I suppose I may as well," she said. "Listen, you have seen what
he was like to-night, but you don't know what it was to live with
him. It was Hell!"--she sobbed--"absolute Hell! He drank, he
took drugs, it was all his servant could do to force him even to
make his toilet. It was impossible. It was crushing the life
out of me."
"Go on," Pritchard directed.
"There isn't much more to tell," she continued. "I found an old
farmhouse--the loneliest spot in Cornwall.
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