"Nay," she laughed. "You go too fast, Mr. Buckler. I know nothing concerning you save that some injustice has been done you. I was told of a homespun student, glum and musty as an old book, and I find instead a town-gallant point-de-vice, who will barter me compliments with the best of them."
"You got your knowledge, doubtless, from Hugh Marston," I replied, with a glance at the door; "and I only wonder the description was not more unflattering."
"I did not mean him," she said slowly. "For I did not even know that you were acquainted with"--she paused, and looked me straight in the face--"with my brother."
"Your brother!" I exclaimed. "Hugh Marston is your brother?" And I took a step towards her. Again I saw a passing look of apprehension in her face, but I did not stop to wonder at it then. I understood that the indefinable familiarity in her looks was due to the likeness which she bore her brother--a likeness consisting not so much of a distinct stamp of features as of an occasional and fleeting similarity of expression.
"I understand," said I, more to myself than to her.
She flushed very red in a way which was unaccountable, and broke in abruptly.
"So you see we have never seen one another before to-day. For the last year I have been travelling abroad with my husband, and only came to London unexpectedly this morning."
Her words revealed the whole plot to me, or so I thought. Secured from discovery by the pledge of secrecy which he had exacted from Ilga, Marston had shown this miniature of his absent sister, and invented a story which there was no one to disprove. Looking back upon the incident with the cooler reflection which a lapse of years induces, I marvel at the conviction with which I drew the inference. But although now I see clearly how incredible it was that a man of Marston's breeding and family should so villainously misuse the fair fame of one thus near to hand, at the time I measured his jealousy by the violence of my own, and was ready to believe that he would check at no barriers of pride and honour which stood between him and his intention. Events, moreover, seemed to jump most aptly with my conclusion.
So, full of my discovery of his plot, I said a second time, "I. understand;" and a second time she flushed unaccountably. I spoke the words with some bitterness and contempt, and she took them to refer to herself.
"You blame me," she began nervously, "for marrying so soon after Julian died. But it is unfair to judge quickly."