"It would be an awful thing to risk, Phil," she said quietly.
His eyes begged her. "Won't you let me carry it a little longer alone?"
"I don't believe you can. And if you can," she added, "I don't see what we got married for."
"When have I shrunk from that?" she asked.
And so Mollie Esdaile too took her portion of the burden.
"Well, where shall we begin?" he asked, with a sigh that it must be so.
"You know best. But tell me first why you didn't write."
"I hadn't seen young Smith. I haven't yet as a matter of fact. But----," he drew her head to his breast, and there were some moments during which he whispered into her ear.
For all his care and guarding it was not possible that she should not at least tremble. But she did not start within his arms. The tremor passed, and her dry lips repeated--
"For some reason or other. I don't think either of us can quite tell Joan that, can we?"
"There's no doubt about it. It was Monty who picked up the pistol. Neither you nor I can very well tell Audrey that, can we?"
"And I picked up the cartridge-shell myself. The police were round here at six o'clock on Friday morning looking for them."
In spite of all, Philip could not restrain a little laugh. "Oh, they didn't find anything. They don't when they've given you warning the night before. By that time both pistol and case had been at the bottom of silver-flowing Tamesis for six hours. I dropped 'em in myself from the middle of Albert Bridge. Do you begin to see what you're in for, my poor darling?"
It was doubtful whether she yet did. She could still only repeat, "Chummy shot him! Does that mean----?" Her horrified stare finished the question.
"Oh, I don't think so," he answered quickly, "at any rate not yet. Naturally both Hubbard and I have got to stand by Chummy for the present."
"Then somebody saw Monty pick up the pistol?"
"For the police to know anything about it, you mean? Well, as a matter of fact that's the purest bad luck. There happens to be a fellow called Westbury, confound him, and that beastly bullet seems to have fetched up somewhere in his house; he lives just across the way there. That's all the police have to go on now that the other things are safely in the river mud."
Slowly it was sinking into her mind. Her eyes closed for a moment as she felt the first faint strain of the weight of it. This came with the thought of Joan.