‘I am going to appeal to your kind feeling--nay, to your honour. My wife knows nothing of my past life, save that it was wild and foolish. You know too well what degradation there was for me in my first marriage. I am not going to speak ill of the dead----’ ‘Pray do not,’ interposed Gerard, very pale. ‘But I must speak plainly. When you knew me I was a most miserable man. I have stood upon one of the bridges many a night, and thought that the best thing I could do with myself was to drop quietly over. Well, Providence cut the knot for me--in a terrible manner--but still the knot was cut. I have profited by my release. Fate has been very kind to me. My wife is the dearest and noblest of women. To pluck the veil from my past history would be to give her infinite pain. I ask you, then, as a gentleman, as a man of honour, to keep my secret and to spare her and me.’ ‘And you,’ said Gerard bitterly. ‘Yes, it is doubtless of yourself you think when you ask me to be silent. To spare you? Did you pity or spare the wretched creature who loved you fondly even in her degradation? As for your secret, as you call it, it is no secret. Mr. Clare, the Vicar’s son, knows as well as I do that John Chicot and John Treverton are one and the same.’ ‘He knows it? Edward Clare?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Since when?’ ‘Positively, since this morning in church. He had his suspicions before. This morning I was able to confirm them.’ ‘I am sorry for it,’ said John Treverton, after they had walked a few paces in silence. ‘I am sorry for it. I had hoped that part of my life was dead and buried--that no phantom from that hateful past would ever arise to haunt my innocent young wife. It is very hard upon me; it is harder upon her.’ ‘There are some ghosts not easily laid,’ returned Gerard. ‘I should think the ghost of a murdered wife was one of them.’ ‘Edward Clare is no friend to me,’ pursued Treverton, hardly hearing Gerard’s remark. ‘He will make the most malicious use of this knowledge that he can. He will tell my wife.’ ‘Might he not do something worse than that?’ ‘What?’ ‘What if he were to tell the police where Chicot, the wife-murderer, is to be found?’ ‘My God!’ cried Treverton, turning upon the speaker with a look of horror. ‘You do not think me that?’ ‘Unhappily, I do.’ ‘On what grounds?’ ‘First, on the strength of your cowardly conduct that night. Why should you shirk the responsibility of your position if you were not guilty? Your flight was damning evidence against you. Surely you must have known that when you fled?’