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wit, he would have perceived now that the letter was true. There was confession in the very tone of her voice. But he had come there determined that it was not true, determined at any rate to act as though it were not true; and it was necessary that he should go through the game as he had arranged to play it. "It is a base letter," he said. "A foul, lying letter. But there is some plot in it of which I know nothing. You can perhaps explain the plot." "Maybe the letter is true," she said standing there, not submissive before him, but still utterly miserable in her guilt. "It is untrue. It cannot possibly be true. It contains a damnable lie. He says that twelve months since you were engaged to him as his wife. Why does he lie like that?" She stood before him quite quiet without the change of a muscle of her face. "Do you understand the meaning of it all?" "Oh, yes." "What is the meaning? Speak to me and explain it." "I was engaged to marry Sir Francis Geraldine just before I knew you. It was broken off and then we went upon the Continent. There I met you. Oh, George, I have loved you so well! I do love you so truly." As she spoke she endeavoured to take his hand in hers. She made that one effort to be tender in obedience to her conscience, but as she made it she knew that it would be in vain. He rejected her hand, without violence indeed but still with an assured purpose, and walked away from her to the further side of the chamber. "It is true then?" "Yes; it is true. Why should it not be true?" "God in Heaven! And I to hear about it for the first time in such a fashion as this! He comes to see you, and because something does not go as he would have it, he turns round and tells me his story. But that he has quarrelled with you now, I should never have heard a syllable." He had come up to her room determined not to believe a word of it. And now, suddenly, there was no fault of which in his mind he was not ready to accuse her. He had been deceived, and she was to him a thing altogether different from that which he had believed her. But she, too, was stung to wrath by the insinuation which his words contained. She knew herself to be absolutely innocent in every respect, except that of reticence to her husband. Though she was prepared to bear the weight of the punishment to which her silence had condemned her, yet she was sure of the purity of her own conduct. Knowing his disposition, she did not care t
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