"Your family wouldn't stand by you, being proud of their connections, although the only gentleman of the lot was myself--and I was in a bank." "Oh, get on to your secret!" "But, Cousin Will--Charles's brother--he stood by you, because he was in the play-acting line himself, and he got the boot, too, from the family. Will gave you away. You were married in South Hackney Church. After the wedding you went away. Will met me that same day; I remember I was a little haughty with him, because a bank clerk can't afford to know a common actor. He told me about it." "What is your secret?" "Two or three years later I met Will again, and borrowed something off him. Then he told me you had gone off to America." "That is no secret." "I'm coming to the secret. Don't you be impatient, Alice. It's my secret, not yours. Now, then. About fifteen years ago, I met a fellow at a billiard-table. He wouldn't play much, and he had some money, and so I thought--well--I got him to lodge with us. Mother kept lodgings in Myddleton Square in those days. He came; he said his name was Anthony, and he was a comedian from the States. We are coming to the secret now. Well, he stayed with us there a few weeks, and I took some money off him at pool; but he never paid his rent, and went away." "Go on." "That was your husband, Alice--your husband, I say--your husband." His voice fell to a mysterious whisper. "Well; and why not?" "Well--if you will have it--I'll say it out loud. That was your husband. You married John Haveril because you thought your husband was dead. Perhaps you hoped he would never find you out. Very well. He's alive still. I've seen him. That's my secret." "I care nothing whether he is alive or dead." "That's bluff. He's alive, I say; and I know where he is at this very minute." "Now you have told your secret, you may go," said Molly. "I tell you," said Alice, "that I do not care to know anything at all about that man." "Well--but--if he is living, how can you be anybody else's wife? Look here, Alice. I'm telling the truth. John Anthony, whose name is Woodroffe, is in London. Last week I met him by accident, but he doesn't remember me. We were engaged in the same occupation. Why should I conceal the poverty to which I am reduced by the hard hearts of wealthy friends? We were carrying boards in Oxford Street. At night we used the same doss-house." "I tell you that I do not wish to hear anything about that man. If he is in poverty and wickedness, he deserves it." "Wouldn't you help him now?" "I tell you I have no money." "But this man is your husband." "I tell you again, I do not want to know anything about the man." "Well, I can go and tell him that you're here, rolling in gold. Forty pounds I want, and then I'll become a credit to the family--as a tobacconist. Else you shall have your husband back again. I've only to set him on to you." "I don't want your secret." "Not to keep your husband from finding you out? Have you no heart, Alice?"