"Not only had I
rather less than twelve hours to make up my mind whether I should
commit a serious offence against the law, but a sensation which I
always hoped that I might experience, has come to me in what I
suppose I must call most unfortunate fashion."
"The woman?" Wilmore ventured.
Francis assented gloomily. There was a moment's silence.
Wilmore, the metaphysician, saw then a strange thing. He saw a
light steal across his friend's stern face. He saw his eyes for
a moment soften, the hard mouth relax, something incredible,
transforming, shine, as it were, out of the man's soul in that
moment of self-revelation. It was gone like the momentary
passing of a strange gleam of sunshine across a leaden sea, but
those few seconds were sufficient. Wilmore knew well enough what
had happened.
"Oliver Hilditch's wife," Francis went on, after a few minutes'
pause, "presents an enigma which at present I cannot hope to
solve. The fact that she received her husband back again,
knowing what he was and what he was capable of, is inexplicable
to me. The woman herself is a mystery. I do not know what lies
behind her extraordinary immobility. Feeling she must have, and
courage, or she would never have dared to have ridded herself of
the scourge of her life. But beyond that my judgment tells me
nothing.
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