"That, as you know, is not the subject to which I referred just now. You may put me by with subterfuge and raillery, Patricia, but I shall always come back to my point, again and again. Patty, what was your reason for personating that most miserable woman, Adèle Lamien? What was your inducement for imposing upon all at the Folly? What was your motive in wishing to deceive me?"
Still she made him no answer. She had turned her head away as he spoke, and taken one of the yellow roses from the vase. She raised this now, and drew it once or twice across her lips. She felt his eyes upon her, but she would not meet them. She knew this to be the crucial moment; and she must meet and overcome it as best she might.
"Patricia," he said again, and his voice grew sterner, "you force me to impute to you motives that are unworthy of you, unworthy of any woman. But how can I think otherwise, if you will not help me to do so? How can I put any other construction upon your conduct, save that of wilful and wanton cruelty, when I remember, that twice as Miss Hildreth, you refused me, scorning my love; and then, that only a few short hours afterwards, as Adèle Lamien you accepted me, and all I had to offer—accepted me, with a lie upon your lips, and deceit in your smile. Have you no explanation to give me, Patricia? Oh, my dear, I will accept any pretext you may offer; only make some little excuse, no matter how trivial, for the duplicity of your conduct."
His voice grew pleading as he finished. Looking at her, as she sat there, so near to him, and yet so far; a beautiful, lovely woman, whose very beauty had brought suspicion and distrust upon her, and remembering how first he had loved her in the full tide of her girlish fairness and innocence, and how through all these years he had cherished her memory, and could not put her from out his heart, all the old tenderness and longing surged up within him, and he knew he could forgive her everything, if only she would give him one little opportunity for such forgiveness.
Had Miss Hildreth but looked up at that moment, while the light of love still lingered in his eyes, and trembled on his lips, surely her foolish pride would have broken down, and all the misery of those last few weeks slipped from her, in the peace of a confession made with his arms about her, her head upon his breast.
But Miss Hildreth, like many a woman before her, let slip the golden chance, and passed by the propitious moment. She still played with the yellow rose and avoided his eyes as she replied, slowly:
"I can explain nothing, Philip; I have no excuse to offer. You must form your own opinion, and I must be judged and sentenced according to it."
"But, Patricia," urged Mr. Tremain, "I ask for so little. Will you not at least assure me, that it was no more wanton motive than love of conquest and power of coquetry, that led you to deceive me, and draw from me that mad proposal, which you, as Adèle Lamien, were pleased to triumph in against your own proper self? My dear, give me but one such assurance, I will be content, I will ask for nothing more."
"No," she replied in a dull, quiet voice, "I cannot. I have nothing to add to my former words. You had better leave me, Philip, and—forget me."
"That I can never do," he said, "I have never for one moment forgotten you in all the ten years of our separation. I am not likely to do so now, when I have again looked so often and so longingly, upon your beauty."