ith a passion which
intoxicated him, "of being violent, but I must go on with this, for Lord
Stamfordham won't rest until it is sifted to the bottom, and he is not a
man to be trifled with. And as to your being defenceless, good God! your
best defence is Rachel's trust in you and devotion to you. It is because
of it that I wanted to spare her the knowledge of what we have been
saying. Her faith in your infallibility has always seemed to me so
touching that for her sake I have respected it. I have tried--Heaven
knows I have tried!--all this time to be to you what she wished me to
be." Gore stirred; he was quite incapable of speaking. "This is not the
moment," Rendel went on, almost unconscious of his words, which poured
out in a flood, "to keep up a hollow mockery of trust and friendship,
and it is more honest to tell you fairly that I have not entirely
shared her faith in you. I have always thought that, like the rest of us
after all, you were neither better nor worse than most other fallible
people in this world, and that you may be, as I daresay we all are,
fashioned by circumstances, or even by temptation. And I tell you
frankly that I believe that you did this thing that I accuse you of.
How, I demand to know. That, at any rate, is not more than one man may
ask of another."

Sir William winced and writhed helplessly under Rendel's words. The
intolerable discomfort and misery that he felt as the moment of
discovery drew near had given place gradually to a furious resentment at
what he was being made to endure at the hands of one who ought not to
have presumed to criticise him. As Rendel stood there, his clearly cut
face hard and stern, pouring out accusations and reproach, Gore felt as
if the younger man embodied all the adverse influences of his own life.
It was through Rendel that the fatal opportunity had come of his getting
himself into this terrible strait, Rendel: who, most unjustly in the
scheme of things, was daring to tax Gore with it. It was too horrible to
bear longer. He too felt that the time had come when that with which his
heart and soul were overflowing must find vent in speech. As he heard
Rendel's words of stern impeachment ringing in his ears, "I tell you
frankly that I believe that you did this thing," he rose desperately to
his feet.

"Well," he said, casting with a kind of horrible relief all restraints
and prudence to the winds, "what if I had?"

Rendel turned pale.

"If you had?" he said