He smiled slightly.
“No need to. Well, I suspected as much.”
She seemed to strive to speak; but nothing came from her.
“I say,” he repeated, “I suspected it. Do I not know this man of old, his craft, his villainy—how he will go long ways about to reach an end—traverse the world to stab an enemy in the back? Most to be feared when most he feigns benevolence—Bonito—that old dreary misanthrope to play the Benthamite! Why, I never doubted but that he had his deep reasons for scheming to marry you to—I never doubted it, I say, Madame; and here’s the proof. He was playing for hush-money.”
She stared at him, as if her very soul were paralysed.
“How he discovered the truth?” he continued—“by cunning or coercion?—” He paused, questioning her at a venture with his eyes. She made no answer; and he went on, shrugging his shoulders: “Like enough ’twas he himself who laid the train—who first supplied the insidious damning information to my friend, and—but it matters little; he discovered it.”
He questioned her face again. Still she was silent.
“If I had guessed in time,” he said, in a deep passionate voice, “this should never have been. It shall be no longer. Madame, I have twice before offered you my services, and twice been rejected with scorn. Once again I lay them at your feet. It was for this, in truth, I sought you. I entreat you, do not refuse me.”
It was not in her nature to do justice to this man. So far as his devotion touched her, it was to nothing but a sense of humiliation. The thought uppermost in her mind was of his cognisance, not his chivalry.
“You know?” she whispered. Her white lips could hardly frame the words.