Another Woman's House by Mignon G. Eberhart

Author:Mignon G. Eberhart [Eberhart, Mignon G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781453257340
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2012-05-29T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

HAD RICHARD TOLD HER?

But that would have been too cruel, something that Richard could not have done.

Well, then, had she guessed? Had there been something in the air, something intangible, untetherable and yet present whenever Myra and Richard were together in the same room, breathing the same air, allowing their eyes to meet, no matter how swiftly, nor how impersonally.

The fire sighed softly. Lilac sachet lay in a fragrant cloud in the room. Alice twisted her small hands together; on one of them shone her wedding ring. “I wish you would say something, Myra. It’s so hard to try to do this alone.”

Myra said slowly, “You are very tired, Alice. Can’t we talk later?”

Alice’s eyelashes swept upward for a fractional second in a glance that was half-frightened, half-bold, like the bright inquiry of a bird peering from underbrush. She leaned forward, speaking rapidly and unevenly. “We haven’t ever known each other very well, Myra. But I know so much about you, you see. Tim adores you. So does Aunt Cornelia. And then you’ve been so very kind to Richard and to Aunt Cornelia since you both came back home, in spite of the horror that happened here.”

“Don’t think of that.”

“Yes, yes. That’s what the Governor said to me. Try to forget. Resume your life as if you had only been away for a time. He said that. I will.”

But she turned her head, nevertheless. She put her chin upon her hand and looked into the fire and added, in a musing voice, “I must pretend it never happened. I must make a new life. I must try to be firm and determined. I must build up self-confidence. I must be the kind of wife Richard wants. That’s why”—she turned to Myra—“I had to see you tonight. I can’t rest, I can’t sleep until I know what you are going to do.”

“What I am going to do?” repeated Myra with a kind of astonishment.

“About Richard, of course,” said Alice.

So Richard must have told her. What had he said?

Alice went on with that weary swiftness and breathlessness. “I thought we could talk about it alone together. He needn’t know. He mustn’t know. You see, I’d heard so much of you from others, that I felt we could talk about it honestly and frankly, the two of us.” She leaned forward, a soft lock of her hair fell over her Dresden china-like face. She brushed it back and said, “I don’t blame either of you. It was bound to happen. I expected it even sooner.”

“You expected it!” Myra was caught again in amazement as if Alice had spread a soft net about her which had tripped and entangled her.

“I knew he’d be lonely. I knew that there are always attractive girls—and, of course, you are extremely attractive, Myra, in that sensible, crisp way of yours.”

Something very feminine, very swift and very absurd in the smallness of its resentment stirred in Myra. Was her claim to feminine charm that of being sensible?

The wide,

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