"I don't wish to say more myself than is necessary. Miss Lepel as she was then and Mr. Sydney Vane were in the habit of meeting each other in the wood. Many of the village people knew it—it was common talk in Beechfield. Mr. Lepel found it out and was angry. He told Mr. Vane there must be no more of it; and then the quarrel followed that Mr. Lepel speaks about. I don't want to make too much of it"—casting a reluctant glance at Hubert—"but I think that Mr. Lepel was right in objecting and in trying to put a stop to it."
It was certain that he had very much softened the facts of the case; but the General could not have looked more confounded, or Flossy more overwhelmed, if a great deal more had been said. The veins swelled upon the old man's forehead, his face grew lividly purple as he strode over to his wife's side and laid his hand heavily on her shoulder.
"Florence, is this true?" he said.
She sat mute and shrinking in her chair, crushed as if beneath an invisible weight—her hands clasped, her white face averted. Miss Vane, watching her eagerly, felt with a thrill of horror that she looked like a guilty woman.
"Is this true?" the General asked again, giving her a little shake. But Flossy still sat mute.
Then Miss Vane interposed.
"Let her alone, Richard," she said. "She is overcome—she cannot answer just now. She will explain everything by-and-by."
"Speak!" cried the General, his eyes blazing with rage. He would have shaken her again and more violently if Hubert had not interfered.
"You forget, sir, that she is a woman and that she is your wife," he said. "Whatever may have happened in the past, she has no doubt regretted what was an imprudence. I was to blame for taking up the matter too seriously. You know what your brother was; I know my sister. We must judge them by what we know."
The words were halting and ambiguous; but they produced some effect. The General fell back, still gazing at his wife; and Flossy, released from the pressure of his heavy hand, sat up and looked about her with a strange red light glowing in her eyes. Then, to everybody's horror, she burst into a fit of wild laughter terrible to hear.