And she, looking at him as intently as he looked at her, said only, in the simplest possible way—
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
LOVE OR TRUST.
Caspar turned away. For a moment he felt mortally sick, as if from a pang of acute physical pain. Distrust from an old friend is always a hard thing to bear. And so, for a moment or two, he did not speak.
"I was not surprised," said Mrs. Romaine, quickly. "I had been looking for something of the kind. I won't say that you were not justified—in a certain sense. Oliver acted abominably, I know. He told me what he was going to do beforehand."
"Told you what he was going to do?"
"Yes—to make Lesley fall in love with him. He did not mean to marry her. He meant to gain her affections and then to—to—leave her, to break her heart. I suppose that is what you found out. I do not wonder that you were surprised."
"No doubt you have good authority for what you are saying," said Mr. Brooke, very coldly, "but your account does not tally with what I have gathered from other sources."