There was a lengthy pause after Peters stopped speaking, and then Craven looked up slowly.
"I don't understand," he said thickly; "all her allowance! What has she been living on--what the devil does it mean?"
Peters shrugged. "I don't know any more about it than you do. I am simply telling you what is the case. It was not for me to question her on such a matter," he said coldly.
"But, Good Heavens, man," began Craven hotly, and then checked himself. He felt stunned by Peters' bald statement of fact, unable, quite, for the moment, to grasp it. Heavens above, how she must hate him! To decline to touch the money he had assured her was hers, not his! On what or on whom had she been living? His face became suddenly congested. Then he put the hateful thought from him. It was not possible to connect such a thing with Gillian. Only his own foul mind could have imagined it. And yet, if she had been other than she was, if it had been so, if in her loneliness and misery she had found love and protection she had been unable to withstand--the fault would be his, not hers. He would have driven her to it. He would be responsible. For a moment the room went black. Then, he pulled himself together. Putting the bundle of accounts back on to the table he met steadily Peters' intent gaze. "My wife is quite at liberty to do what she chooses with her own money," he said slowly, "though I admit I don't understand her action. Doubtless she will explain it in due course. Until then the money can continue to lie idle. It is not such a large sum that you need be in such a fierce hurry about it. In any case I am going to Paris tomorrow. I can let you know further when I have seen her." His voice was harsh with the effort it cost him to steady it. "And having seen her--what are you going to do to her?" The question, and the manner of asking it, made Craven look at Peters in sudden amazement. The agent's face was stern and curiously pale, high up on his cheek a little pulse was beating visibly and his eyes were blazing direct challenge. Craven's brows drew together slowly.
"What do you mean?"
Peters leant forward, resting one arm on his knee, and the knuckles of his clenched hand shone white.
"I asked you in so many words what you were going to do to her," he said, in a voice vibrant with emotion. "You will say it is no business of mine. But I am going to make it my business. Good God, Barry, do you think I've seen nothing all these years? Do you think I can sit down and watch history repeat itself and make no effort to avert it for lack of moral courage? I can't. When you were a boy I had to stand aside and see your mother's heart broken, and I'm damned if I'm going to keep silent while you break Gillian's heart. I loved your mother, the light went out for me when she died. For her sake I carried on here, hoping I might be of use to you--because you were her son. And then Gillian came and helped to fill the blank she had left. She honoured me with her friendship, she brought brightness into my life until gradually she has become as dear to me as if she were my own daughter. All I care about is her happiness--and yours. But she comes first, poor lonely child. Why did you marry her if it was only to leave her desolate again? Wasn't her past history sad enough? She was happy here at first, before your marriage. But afterwards--were you blind to the change that came over her? Couldn't you see that she was unhappy? I could. And I tell you I was hard put to it sometimes to hold my tongue. It wasn't my place to interfere, it wasn't my place to see anything, but I couldn't help seeing what was patent to the eye of anybody who was interested. You left her, and you have come back. For what? You are her husband, in name at any rate--oh, yes, I know all about that, I know a great deal more than I am supposed to know, and do you think I am the only one?--legally she is bound to you, though I do not doubt she could easily procure her freedom if she so wished, so I ask you again--what are you going to do?