Robert Turold, returning to England with some concocted story of my death, had swept her off her feet, caught her on the rebound.

He had returned a prosperous man, and doubtless his love-making was reinforced by Alice's worldly parents and the match-making old aunt.

The combination was a strong one, and I was supposed to be dead.

So she married him, without breathing a word to anybody of her previous secret marriage to me.

I realized that at once.