'Why did you tell me?' she repeated, and the words were an accusation.
'You wished to know,' he replied doggedly, 'and it seemed to me that you had the right to know.'
'Right!' she exclaimed, 'right! What right had I to know? What right had you to tell me?'
She rose to her feet suddenly as she spoke and confronted Drake. He looked into her eyes steadily, but with a certain perplexity.
'I felt bound to tell you,' he said simply, and his simplicity appealed to her by its frank recognition of an obligation to her.
'Why,' she asked herself, 'why did he feel bound? Merely because I wished to know the truth of the matter, or because he himself was implicated in it as the instrument of Gorley's punishment?' Either reason was sufficient to appease her. She inclined to the latter; there were conclusions to be inferred from it which staunched her wounded pride.
Clarice turned away. Drake watched her set a foot upon the rail of the fender, lay her hand upon the mantelshelf and support her forehead upon it. After a little she raised her head and spoke with an air of apologising for him.
'Of course,' she said. 'You could not know that there was anything between myself and—and him.'
'No; I could not know that. How should I, for I did not know you? And I am glad that I didn't know.'
Drake spoke with some earnestness, and Clarice looked at him in surprise.