“Oh!” he gasped; “the horror of what I dreaded!”
Then he came closer and snarled at me:
“Here’s a friend, out of all the world! So patronizing to accept the poor little treasure of my life and soul, and so royal to roll it in the mud! Was this a put-up affair between you?”
“You are hateful and unjust!” I cried, stung beyond endurance. “He forced himself upon us last Sunday. I was brutal, almost, in my efforts to get rid of him. But for some reason or other, Dolly—Miss Mellison—took his side. When I found so, I left them in a huff and repented almost immediately. But, though I sought far and near, I never came across them again till evening.”
He listened with a black, gloomy impatience.
“You acted well, by your own confession,” said he. “You played the part of a true friend and lover by leaving her alone for a moment only in the company of that paragon.”
“I oughtn’t to, I know.”
He gave a high, grating laugh.
“But, putting me on one side,” I began, when he took me up with the most intense acrid bitterness.
“Why can’t I, indeed—you and all your precious kith and kin? Why did I ever save you from being knocked on the head in that thieves’ garden? I was happy before—God knows I might have been happy in another way now. You’ve proved the viper on my hearth with a vengeance. Put you on one side? Ah, I dare say that would suit you well—to shirk the responsibility of your own act and leave the suffering to others.”