Part 64 (1/2)
”What? _Is_ there anything to know?”
”Yes: worse luck. I ought to have spoken sooner. But I s.h.i.+rked it, especially after what you said out driving. You remember--that letter--long ago?”
”Am I likely to forget? What about it?”
This time he faced her deliberately, though the blood mounted to his forehead.
”I am the chap who wrote it. I'm the man you have been hating all these years; the man you _hate still_.”
She came a step closer and stood gazing at him blankly, reorganising her sensations.
”You wrote it? _You_?”
”Yes; I.”
”But did you really know anything about me, or about Sir Roger Bennet?”
”Nothing on earth. I was simply repeating idle gossip.”
”Oh, how could you! And look what came of it. The years of bitterness and estrangement----!” He winced under her pa.s.sionate reproach.
”It was done in ignorance, remember; though, as you reminded me not long since, that doesn't soften facts. Slang me; hate me for it, if you must. It can't be helped.”
”But I don't hate you, _mon ami_; I couldn't if I tried for a month.”
This was disconcerting. He had thought to snap the cord of their friends.h.i.+p, and so make it easier to see less of her in future.
”Not even now you know?” he persisted desperately. And she shook her head.
”Yet you told me distinctly that you could never forgive that unlucky chap.”
”But then I never guessed it was _you_,” she retorted with true woman's logic. ”How _could_ one hate you, after what happened last month.
Eldred told me.”
”That,”--he shrugged his shoulders,--”that was a mere nothing.”
”Excuse me, as men go now it was a good deal. But still--I am puzzled.
If you s.h.i.+rked telling me all this while, what made you tell me to-day?”
This also was disconcerting. But he did his best.
”I don't know. Perhaps it was talking of rewards. Besides--I'm one of those clumsy fools who never feel quite comfortable until he has blurted out the truth.”
He tried to laugh, but her direct look broke the sound in his throat.
”I rather admire that kind of fool,” she said, with quiet emphasis.
”And you have lost nothing by your folly,--nothing.”
”Does that mean you have quite forgiven me?” For the life of him he could not stifle the exultation in his tone.