“I’ll tell you something, Jane: I’m rather in love with Peter—do you feel faint?”
“I’m not a little bit faint.” But Jane was more than a little bit curious. “You’re not jesting?”
“I decided this morning that I was very much in love with him,” said Leslie calmly, “but I’ve had a long think about it, and have reached the conclusion that it is rather my maternal instinct that is operating. I’m loving the boy in a motherly fashion, in fact. Sooner or later that boy of yours is going to be found, and then you’ve got to go to your husband and tell him the truth.”
She was watching Jane’s face closely, ready to note and spring upon the first visible sign of repugnance. But Jane was listening; and listening, the girl realized, her heart sinking, with approval.
“And then Lord Raytham must divorce you, and Peter and you must start afresh.”
Here was the first note of dissent. Jane shook her head.
“Peter is different,” she said. “I realized it when I saw him last night. He’s not the same man. And can you wonder? Leslie, I never loved him. You’ll think that’s a horrible thing to say of the father of my child. He represented—I don’t know, curiosity, I suppose—adventure—the grand hairpin turn of life, where so much is upset and smashed, so many hopes and ideals die. And he never loved me. He was infatuated and he was fond of me, and had a wonderful chivalrous feeling that he was rescuing me from something. That is half his trouble now, that he knows he didn’t love me, and it makes him feel ugly and ashamed. You think the child may bring us together. I’m becoming quite a thought-reader! But that sort of thing really doesn’t happen, does it? Children really do not determine very much. Half the women who are divorced have children who love them and whom they love, but it didn’t prevent—things happening. I think Peter and I might be good friends, and the boy might love us both, even though we were apart, for children give you back what you give to them—I could give him such a lot.”
With an impatient wave of her head she sat up and walked resolutely to the window.
“Let us talk of rabbits,” she said. “How did you break this?” she asked.
For a new and unpainted sash had been put into the window space that morning.
“Never mind about that. A visitor put his head through it. Jane, you’re taking rather a hopeless view of life, aren’t you?”
The woman shrugged.
“My dear, what can happen? If this were a story and it wasn’t real life, I should go away somewhere, contract a malignant fever and die to soft, slow music! But I refuse to offer myself up as a sacrifice in order that my story shall have a smooth and a happy ending. And if I die, Peter will endow me with all sorts of gentle qualities which I don’t possess, and will pass the rest of his life in the twilight of melancholy—I know men!”
Leslie was laughing softly. She had too keen a sense of humour not to appreciate the fact that this entanglement had its funny side. Suddenly she became serious.
“There are only a few questions I want to ask you, that I’ve never asked before. Did you give Druze your emerald necklace?”
Jane nodded.
“Yes. This mythical person wanted thirty thousand pounds. I could only draw twenty without Raytham knowing. The necklace was worth twelve thousand, and I suggested that Druze should sell it. She jumped at the chance. I thought she had taken it away a week before she actually did.”
“You can’t account for the pendant being found in her hand?”
Jane shook her head.
“And you don’t know where the rest of the chain is to be found?”
“I am absolutely ignorant. I can’t conceive how she met her death. It is only reasonable to suppose that she had a life and friends of whom I knew nothing. Where she went after she left my house I do not know. I guessed she was going to Anita’s, because she would not leave England without saying goodbye—she was very much attached to Anita.”
“How long after your baby was born were you married to Lord Raytham?”
Jane considered.
“About ten months,” she said.
“Did you know Reno personally?”
“Yes,” Jane nodded. “That was one of the queer coincidences of it all. My father had a small farm near Reno, just a shack and a few acres of ground, and this was accepted as a residential qualification. Of course, I had to lie desperately and say I was living there all the time, and really I believed the divorce would go through. I even appeared in court and gave my evidence, and I thought that the thing was settled, until Anita saw me outside the courthouse and told me that my lawyers had made a bungle and that the divorce could not be granted without serving some papers upon Peter. I went straight away with her; her automobile was waiting, for I was scared of the reporters, who were all the time hunting marriage romances for their newspapers. Besides, the baby was coming. I was frightened that people would know.”
“And you returned immediately?”
Jane nodded.
“Yes—I went to Cumberland from Liverpool. Anita discovered the place. It was some time after Christmas—I remember that I was in New York on Christmas Day.”
“There is one final question, Jane, and then I’ll stop being a mark of interrogation and take you out to lunch. That is, if you don’t mind being seen in public with a Scotland Yard female.”
“If you wish,” said Jane, with the first spark of animation she had shown, “I will eat my lunch out of a paper bag with you, seated on top of one of Landseer’s lions.”
“This is the question,” said Leslie, slowly and deliberately. “Marriage with Lord Raytham was in the air, wasn’t it, and you had discussed it with Anita?”
Jane nodded.
“And did she know of your intention of marrying
