William Monk 04 - A Sudden Fearful Death

with wide eyes. “Rodwell? You mean the gardener? Of course it was not him! Do you think I wouldn’t recognize our own gardener? Oh—oh no! You can’t think …” She stopped, her face scarlet.
    “No I don’t,” he said quickly. “I simply had to be sure. No, I don’t think it was Rodwell, Miss Gillespie. But I do think you know who it was.”
    Now her face was very pale except for the splashes of color high in her cheeks. She looked at him in hot, furious accusation.
    “You think I was willing! Oh dear heaven, how could you! How could you?” She jerked away and her voice was filled with such horror his last vestiges of doubt vanished.
    “No I don’t,” he answered, aware of how facile that sounded. “But I think you are afraid that people will believe it, so you are trying to protect yourself.” He avoided using the word
lying.
    “You are wrong,” she said simply, but she did not turn back to face him. She still stood with shoulders hunched and staring toward the shrubbery and the end wall of the garden beyond which came the intermittent shouts of the Hylton children playing.
    “How did he get in?” he asked gently. “No stranger could come through the house.”
    “Then he must have come through the herb garden,” she replied.
    “Past Rodwell? He said he saw no one.”
    “He must have been somewhere else.” Her voice was flat, brooking no argument. “Maybe he went ’round to the kitchen for a few minutes. Perhaps he went for a drink ofwater, or a piece of cake or something, and didn’t like to admit it.”
    “And this fellow seized his chance and came through into the back garden?” He did not try to keep the disbelief from his voice.
    “Yes.”
    “What for? There’s nothing here to steal. And what a risk! He couldn’t know Rodwell would leave again. He could have been caught here for hours.”
    “I don’t know!” Her voice rose desperately.
    “Unless he knew you were here?”
    Finally she swung around, her eyes brilliant. “I don’t know!” she shouted. “I don’t know what he thought! Why don’t you just admit you can’t find him and go away? I never thought you would. It’s only Julia who even wants to, because she’s so angry for me. I told you you would never find anyone. It’s ridiculous. There’s no way to know.” Her voice caught in her throat huskily. “There cannot be. If you don’t want to explain to her, then I will.”
    “And honor will be satisfied?” he said dryly.
    “If you like.” She was still furious.
    “Do you love him?” he asked her softly.
    The anger vanished from her face, leaving it totally shocked.
    “What?”
    “Do you love him?” he repeated.
    “Who? What are you talking about? Love whom?”
    “Audley.”
    She stared at him as if mesmerized, her eyes dark with pain and some other profound emotion he thought was horror.
    “Did he force you?” he went on.
    “No!” she gasped. “You are quite wrong! It wasn’t Audley! That’s a dreadful thing to say—how dare you? He is my sister’s husband!” But there was no conviction in her voice and it shook even as she tried to uphold her outrage.
    “It is exactly because he is your sister’s husband that I cannot believe you were willing,” he persisted, but he felta profound pity for her distress, and his own emotion was thick in his voice.
    Her eyes filled with tears. “It wasn’t Audley,” she said again, but this time it was a whisper, and there was no anger in it, and no conviction. It was a protest for Julia’s sake, and even she did not expect him to believe it.
    “Yes it was,” he said simply.
    “I shall deny it.” Again it was a statement of fact.
    He had no doubt she would, but she seemed not to be certain he was convinced. “Please, Mr. Monk! Say nothing,” she implored. “He would deny it, and I should look as if I were a wicked woman as well as immoral. Audley has given me a home and looked after me ever since he married Julia. No one would believe me, and they would think me totally without gratitude or duty.” Now there was real fear in her voice, far sharper than the physical fear or revulsion of the assault. If she were branded with such a charge she would find herself not only homeless in the immediate future, but without prospects of marriage in the distance. No respectable man would marry a woman who first took a lover, whether reluctantly or not, and then made such a terrible charge against her sister’s husband, a man who had been so