The Great Skene Mystery by Bernard Capes — Read

So she believed me to be her son and his! The deadlier mystery was none of her sharing. For that, at least, I could breathe one heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving. She was innocent of any but that one deceit, and that one, even, in the relief of my soul, I could have found trivial to insignificance.

The memory of our interview held me sleepless and agitated through most of the bitter night. I had denounced bravely, and promised bravely, and now through what new development of the situation was I purposing to redeem my promise? My course, I felt, would have been an easier if a darker one, had she betrayed her guilty partnership in that secret. Her ignorance there was but a new rock in my path. All doors seemed to open but to shut in my face; all jack-o'-lantern lights to lead me on but to plunge me in confusion. What impulse, interest, frenzy had so driven that mad woman to betray her husband to me? None, perhaps; but some inexplicable craft calculating to mislead me. Yet had I not proved the genuineness of her strange confidence? No, it was impossible not to believe that for some hidden reason he had earned her revengeful hatred. But for what reason? And how was it to be associated with the paramount mystery?