"He paused, in the expectation that his wife would speak, and she said coldly:
"'You are doubtless stating the truth.'
"'The simple truth, madame, neither more nor less; and believe it or not, as you will, it was your welfare, not mine, that was uppermost in my mind. Your lady mother assured me that before you came to the villa your heart was entirely free, but that since you honoured me by becoming my guest, you had fixed your affections upon myself. My astonishment was great; I could scarcely believe the evidence of my senses. I entreated your lady mother not to mislead me, and she proved to me--to me, to whom the workings of a woman's heart were as a sealed book--in a hundred different ways, which she said I might have discovered for myself if I had had the wit--that you most truly loved me. She professed to be honoured by my proposal, which she accepted for you, and which she said you would joyfully accept for yourself. But she warned me not to be disappointed in the manner in which you would receive me; that your pride and shame might impel you to appear reluctant instead of joyful, and that it behoved me, as a wise man--Heaven help me!--to put a right and sensible construction on the natural maidenly reserve of a young girl. The rest you know. The wise man, madame, has been sadly at fault; it has been fatally proved to him that he knows little of the workings of the human heart.'
"She held up her hand as a sign that she wished to speak, and he paused. A little thing struck me at the time, which has never passed out of my mind. She held up her hand in front of the lamp, and the light shone through the thin, delicate fingers. Seldom do I think of my lady without seeing that slight, beautiful hand, with the pink light shining through it.
"'My mother,' she said, 'did not speak the truth. M. Gabriel and I were affianced before I became your guest.'
"'Your information comes too late,' said my master; 'you should have told me so much when I offered you my name. It would have been sufficient. I should not have forced myself upon you, and shame and sin would have been avoided.'
"'There has been no sin,' said my lady, 'and who links me with shame brings shame upon himself. I have been wronged beyond the hope of reparation in this life. Before you spoke to me of marriage I wrote to M. Gabriel frequently from this villa. My letters were intercepted----'
"He interrupted her. 'To my knowledge no letters were intercepted; I had no suspicion of such a proceeding.'
"I do not say you had; I am making you acquainted with a fact. Hurt and vexed at receiving no reply to my letters, and being able to account for it only on the supposition that they had not come into his possession, I wrote one and gave it to Denise to post for me. That also, as I learnt after my mother's death, was intercepted, and never reached its destination. In the meantime, false information was given to me respecting M. Gabriel; shameful stories were related to me, in which he was the principal actor. He was vile and false, as I was led to believe; and you were held up to me as his very opposite, as noble, chivalrous, generous, disinterested----'
"'In all of which you will bear in mind, I was in no way inculpated, being entirely ignorant of what was going on under my roof.'