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well off. And then, quite soon, I met this man Brotherhood. He proposed and I accepted him⁠—you mustn't ask me why, Mr. Reeves. That's a thing even detectives can't find out about, why women fall in love with men. I'll only mention that at that time he wasn't a bit rich. After I married we lived in a rather horrid house in Kensington. I never knew anything about his Stock Exchange business much, though I always had an idea that it wasn't very safe, if it was even honest. He began to make money quite soon; and then, you see, he made the whole of it over to me. He was afraid, of course, that he might go bankrupt, and he wanted to have a good reserve which his creditors couldn't touch. I was always rather a fool about business, or I suppose I should have minded the arrangement. As it was, I just thought it very nice of him, and we made arrangements to take a house in the country. I wanted Binver, because it was one of the few places where I'd any friends.

"Then, quite suddenly, I found out about him. I don't mean about his business; I mean about his private life. There are lots of atheists who are very nice people; my husband wasn't one of them. I somehow feel that he chucked over morals first and religion afterwards, if you know what I mean, not the other way about."

Reeves wrote down "Brotherhood not only⁠ – God but⁠ – morals"; then he scratched it out again. Miss Rendall-Smith went on:

"I didn't want a divorce: you see, I'd been rather