At length the stillness grew irksome to him.
"I am waiting patiently, Ada; waiting to hear why you abandoned your husband!"
She started: her eye kindled, and the fiery blood flashed into her cheek.
"I did not abandon my husband. He left me."
"For a journey, but for a journey!" was the calm reply.
"Yes, such journeys as you had taken before, and with a like motive, leaving me young, penniless, beset with temptation, tortured with jealousy. On that very journey you had a companion."
She looked at him as if eager even then, against her own positive knowledge, to hear a denial of her accusations; but he only smiled, and murmured softly—
"Yes, yes, I remember. It was a pleasant journey."
"It drove me wild—I was not myself—suspicions, such suspicions haunted me. I thought—I believed, nay, believe now that you wished me to go—that you longed to get rid of me—nay, that you encouraged—I cannot frame words for the thought even now. He had lent you money, large sums—William, William, in the name of Heaven, tell me that it was not for this I was left alone in debt and helpless. Say that you did not yourself thrust me into that terrible temptation!"