His tone was harsh as he made answer: "Because it is time this folly should cease. Because you are my wife. Because you bear my name. Because your honour is mine, and I will not have you running about the world—under no better guard than that of Burgravine Betty."
The contempt of his accents, the doubt, stung her beyond bearing.
"By all accounts," she cried—and there was almost a sneer upon her sweet lips—"you had been willing enough, not so long ago, to trust her with your own honour."
So the fiddler had been right. Betty had made mischief! The thought danced a moment through Steven's brain; but in the confusion of anger he failed to seize its real import.
Sidonia went on, vainly endeavouring to steady her voice as it throbbed to the beating of her heart:
"You talk of honour! Is it honourable to speak of her like this—is it generous?"
"Generous?" he echoed. "Will you teach me generosity, you who drove me away, without explanation—without giving me a chance to explain? You, the bride of an hour!"
"Come, then, I am listening now. Explain." Her accent, her air, were passionately peremptory. Her fingers sought hastily in the reticule at her side—the tangible evidence of her misfortune was hidden there. She laid the note before him on the table, spreading it and smoothing it out for him, even as Betty had done for her on the wedding day, in the turret at Wellenshausen. "Explain this," she said.
Steven cast a quick glance at the incriminating document, opened his mouth upon scorn and denial, then checked himself with a bitter laugh and a shrug of the shoulders.
"Tell her the naked truth!" It was the fiddler's advice. To tell her upon what a petty rock their barque was foundering ... it ought to have been an easy thing! Yet the man stood, contemptuous, smiling, silent. Every instinct of his being revolted against the girl's haughty command. His pride alone would have kept him mute, but there was something yet stronger, more intimate, to restrain him. "Tell her the naked truth!" Naked enough was the truth, ugly enough, sordid enough, to be convincing if he could have brought himself to speak it! The truth? Why, here it would have been: "Your Aunt Betty offered herself to me, threw herself upon my protection. I did not love her, I did not want her. She gave me no choice; and this is her woman's revenge!"