"Why?"
"Why!" he echoed angrily. "Do you mean to say you don't know why?"
"I know nothing," said Rachel. She stood before him shining in her satin and diamonds, without a trace of colour in her face; and the anguish of her beseeching eyes told him plainly that she spoke the truth.
"Oh, dear me, this is terrible!" he exclaimed, in a flurry of dismay and consternation. "Do you mean to say that you didn't know that he was ill?—that you didn't tell Mrs. Hardy to write that letter?—that it was all done without your knowing anything about it? Good Heavens! would anybody believe there were such malignant fiends in existence—and such fools!" he added bitterly.
Then he told her the whole story—how her lover had got hurt, and had lain insensible for many days, between life and death—how his first anxiety upon recovering consciousness was about his appointment with her—how he had deputed his friend to go to Melbourne and explain his inability to keep it; and how he (Mr. Gordon) had seen Mrs. Hardy and afterwards Mr. Kingston, and been led by them to an apparently unavoidable conclusion.
"She said you were not willing to see me, but that she would give you my messages and explanations," said the little man, thinking it would be best for his friend (and not much caring what it would be for other people) to have it all out at once, while he was as about it; "and that she would send me a note to the club, where I was staying, in the evening, or instruct you to do so. She had already told me that you were re-engaged to—a—your present husband. At night I got the letter, in which she repeated this assertion, stating that you had empowered her to do so."
"And you went and told him that?"
"I did not go and tell him that—for I did not want to kill him—until I had taken every possible precaution to get it corroborated."
"Yes?" ejaculated Rachel, breathlessly.
"I obtained an introduction to Mr. Kingston at the club, and I asked him on his honour to tell me if what Mrs. Hardy had said was true."