Her voice broke the spell, and, while its trembling cadences still lingered on the air, Mr. Tremain came nearer and stood beside her, looking down upon the troubled face and anxious eyes that dared not meet his own.
"Patricia," he said, "I have come to you now, because I must know the truth. Because, notwithstanding the speciousness of John Mainwaring's pleading, there still remains a little matter between you and me that needs some explanation. I have come, Patricia, to hear that explanation from your own lips."
His voice was harsh despite the tender supplication of his eyes; and Miss Hildreth, looking down, missed this contradictory tenderness, and realised only the commanding ring of his tones.
Her face hardened, and the old look of mocking defiance settled down upon it. She gave a little laugh; the artificiality of its ring jarred on Philip's sensibilities, and caused the tenderness in his eyes to give place to quick anger.
"Ah!" said Miss Hildreth, "how could I forget that you, Philip, would require even stronger proof than any afforded by Mr. Mainwaring's eloquence, to convince you of my inability to commit a murder? I failed, you see, to take into account the incredulity of a legal mind."
If her words were insolent, the smile and laugh accompanying them were more so, but Mr. Tremain would not let his hasty temper get the better of his discretion. He had come to her with the unformed theory, evoked by John Mainwaring's ambiguous words, still at work within him, and he determined, if it lay in his power, to force confirmation of it from her.
"You know that is not what I mean," he said gently; "no one can ever again entertain so vile a suspicion against you."
"Yet you doubted me, Philip," she interrupted; "you doubted me throughout."
"Yes," he answered, "if you like to classify a feeling, that scarce had formation in my mind, under so grave an emotion as doubt—why, then—I did doubt you, Patricia."
She made no reply to this, and after a short pause he began again: