She looked at him with a puzzled frown
upon her face.
"Do talk or say something, please!" she exclaimed. "You look at
me like some grim figure. Say something. Sit down and be
natural."
"May I ask you some questions?"
"Of course you may," she replied. "You may do anything sooner
than stand there looking so grim and unbending. What is it you
want to know?"
"Did you understand that Wenham Gardner was this sort of man when
you married him?"
She shrugged her shoulders slightly.
"I suppose I did," she admitted.
"You married him, then, only because he was rich?"
She smiled.
"What else do women marry for, my dear moralist?" she demanded.
"It isn't my fault if it doesn't sound pretty. One must have
money!"
Tavernake inclined his head gravely; he made no sign of dissent.
"You two came over to England," he went on, "with Beatrice and
your father. Beatrice left you because she disapproved of
certain things."
Elizabeth nodded.
"You may as well know the truth," she said. "Beatrice has the
most absurd ideas. After a week with Wenham, I knew that he was
not a person with whom any woman could possibly live. His valet
was really only his keeper; he was subject to such mad fits that
he needed some one always with him. I was obliged to leave him
in Cornwall. I can't tell you everything, but it was absolutely
impossible for me to go on living with him."
"Beatrice," Tavernake remarked, "thought otherwise."
Elizabeth looked at him quickly from below her eyelids.
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