Part 44 (2/2)
Surprise, indeed, marks all her charming features.
”Well?” says she, as he stops, as if expecting more.
She waits, indeed, as one at a loss.
”Well?” He repeats the word with a wild mockery. Could there be under heaven another woman so dead to all honesty? Does she dare to think she can deceive him to the end? In what a lovely form the evil can dwell! ”Well!” He brings down his hand with a little crash upon the table near her. ”I was there--near that arbour. I heard--I heard all.”
”Well, I'm sorry,” says t.i.ta slowly, colouring faintly.
”Sorry! Is that all? Do you know what it means--what I can do?”
”I don't see that you can do anything,” says she, thinking of her revelation to Hescott about Margaret. ”It is Colonel Neilson who might do something.”
”Neilson?”
”Yes, Colonel Neilson.”
”Are you mad?” says Sir Maurice, in a low tone, ”to think you can thus deceive me over and over again?”
He draws back from her. Disgust is in his heart. Does she dream that she can pa.s.s off Neilson as her lover, instead of Hescott? He draws a sharp breath. How she must love Hescott, to seek thus to s.h.i.+eld him, when ruin is waiting for herself!
”I am not mad,” says t.i.ta, throwing up her head. ”And as to deceiving you--Of course I can see that you are very angry with me for betraying Margaret's secret to Tom; but, then, Tom is a great friend, and when he said something about Margaret's being an old maid, I couldn't bear it any longer. You _know_ how I love Margaret!--and I told him all about Colonel Neilson's love for her, and that she _needn't_ be an old maid unless she liked. But as to deceiving you----”
Rylton, standing staring at her, feels that it is the truth--the truth only--to which he is listening. Not for a moment does he disbelieve her. Who could, gazing on that small, earnest face? And yet his silence breathes of disbelief to her. She steps backwards, and raises her little hand--a little hand very tightly clenched.
”What! Do you not believe me?” asks she, her eyes blazing.
”I believe you? Yes,” returns her quickly. ”But there is this----”
”There is this, too,” interrupting him pa.s.sionately. ”You accuse me of deception most wrongfully, and I--I accuse you of the worst thing of all, of listening behind my back--of listening deliberately to what was never meant for you to hear.”
”I did not listen,” says Rylton, who is now very white. ”It so chanced that I stood near the arbour; but I heard only one word, and it was about some secret. I came away then. I did not stay.”
t.i.ta turns to him with a vehemence that arrests him.
”Who brought you to the arbour?” asks she.
”Brought me?”
”Yes. Who brought you?”
”What do you mean?” asks Rylton, calmly enough, but with a change of colour.
”Ah! you will not betray her, but I know. It was Mrs. Bethune.
Now”--she goes nearer to him, her pretty, childish face transformed by grief and anger--”now, confess, it _was!”_ She draws back again.
”No,” says she, sighing disconsolately. ”No, of course you would not tell. But I,” looking back at him reproachfully, _”I_--told _you--_things.”
”Many things,” returns he coldly--unreasonably angry with her because of her allusion to Mrs. Bethune; ”and hardly to your credit.
<script>