"Who told you I was a Christian? I tell you I am a Pagan. Leave me at least the Pagan virtues of courage and fearlessness." She did not move. He looked at her. There could be no doubt she was sincere. Mad as her words sounded, they must be taken at the full value of their ordinary meaning. "I will not seek to break down your resolution or turn your purpose aside. But before I can be of any real use to you in the way of advice, you must trust me wholly. How am I to judge of your duty unless I know the entire case? Tell me all you know. Tell me all that passed between you and this Fahey, and all you know of the relations between him and your husband." "I will tell you all you need know." "Do you think you are a good judge of where your confidence in a matter of this importance should end?" "I think I am. At all events, I shall be reticent if I consider it better not to speak." "Well, then, go on, Marion, and tell me all you may. Mind, the more I know the more likely I am able to be of use to you." She passed the hand not resting on the table across her forehead. "Sit down," she said. "I can speak with greater ease while you are sitting." He took a chair directly opposite her, and she began: "All that I said at the inquest is true, and I told the whole truth in answer to any questions I was asked; but I did not say all that was in my mind. I have had bitter trials in my life. I will not refer again to what was once between you and me; and, remember, in anything I may say I shall have no thought of that. I put that away from my mind altogether, and it will be ungenerous of you if you draw any deduction towards our relations in the past from anything I may say. Is that understood?" "Perfectly, Marion. I know you too well to fancy for a moment you could be guilty of the mean cowardice of talking at any one. Go on." "Thank you. I am glad you think I am no coward." She still kept her hand before her face, as though to concentrate her attention upon her mental vision. "As I said at that awful inquest, there was never anything ever so slightly like a quarrel between Mr. Davenport and me. Except that we lived almost exclusively at Kilcash House, which was dull, I had little or nothing to complain of; and the great quiet and isolation of that place did not affect me much, for I had small or no desire to go out into the world, and after a few years it would have given me more pain than pleasure to have to mingle in society. Very shortly after my marriage I met Michael Fahey for the first time----" "What was he like?" asked Blake, interrupting her. "He was tall and slender. His hair was brown, his eyes light in colour--blue, I think. He wore a moustache of lighter colour than his hair, and small whiskers of the same colour. He was good-looking in a way----" "What kind of way?"