Everard was looking at him fixedly, but something of the strain went out of his look at the words.  A gleam of relief crossed his face.

“All right.  I will—­confess to you,” he said.  “But I warn you beforehand, you’ll be horribly shocked.  And—­you won’t feel like absolving me afterwards.”

“That’s not my job, dear fellow,” Bernard answered gently.  “Go ahead!  You’re sure of my sympathy anyway.”

“Am I?  You’re a good chap, St. Bernard.  Look here, don’t kneel there!  It’s not suitable for a father confessor,” Everard’s faint smile showed for a moment.

Bernard’s hand closed upon his.  “Go ahead!” he said again, “I’m all right.”

Everard made an abrupt gesture that had in it something of surrender.  “It’s soon told,” he said, “though I don’t know why I should burden you with it.  That fellow Ralph Dacre—­I didn’t murder him.  I wish to Heaven I had.  So far as I know—­he is alive.”

“Ah!” Bernard said

Jerkily, with obvious effort, Everard continued.  “I’m a murderous brute no doubt.  But if I had the chance to kill him now, I’d take it.  You see what it means, don’t you?  It means that Stella—­that Stella—­” He broke off with a convulsive movement, and dropped back into a tortured silence.

“Yes.  I see what it means,” Bernard said.

After an interval Everard forced out a few more words.  “About a fortnight after their marriage I got your letter telling me he had a wife living.  I went straight after them in native disguise, and made him clear out.  That’s the whole story.”

“I see,” Bernard said again.

Again there fell a silence between them.  Everard sat bowed, his head on his hand.  The awful pallor was passing, but the stricken look remained.

Bernard spoke at last.  “You have no idea what became of him?”

“Not the faintest.  He went.  That was all that concerned me.”  Grimly, without lifting his head, he made answer.  “You know the rest—­or you can guess.  Then you came, and told me that the woman—­Dacre’s wife—­died before his marriage to Stella.  I’ve been in hell ever since.”

“I wish to Heaven I’d stopped away!” Bernard exclaimed with sudden vehemence.

Everard shifted his position slightly to glance at him.  “Don’t wish that!” he said.  “After all, it would probably have come out somehow.”

“And—­Stella?” Bernard spoke with hesitation, as if uncertain of his ground.  “What does she think?  How much does she know?”

“She thinks like the rest.  She thinks I murdered the hound.  And I’d rather she thought that,” there was dogged suffering in Everard’s voice, “than suspected the truth.”

“You think—­” Bernard still spoke with slight hesitation—­“that will hurt her less?”

“Yes.”  There was stubborn conviction in the reply.  Everard slowly straightened himself and faced his brother squarely.  “There is—­the child,” he said.