“I took no advantage, as you call it, until I learnt that the trust was a lying one.”
“She told you?”
“She did not. You will be careful, if you are wise, how you deal with her name here. She was loyal to her betrayers to the end. It was quite by accident that I learned the truth—the imposture to which we had both been induced to lend ourselves—unconsciously on my part—by a clergyman’s moral daughter.”
“You may save your sarcasm, Felix: it does not impress me. I had a desperate duty to perform, and I took the only means possible at hand to effect it. It was partly with a view to giving you the explanation which is certainly your due that I came to-day. If you wish to hear, you shall.”
I had resumed my tramping, but stopped at that, and faced her.
“O!” I said; “you think it my due, do you? Having robbed and ruined me, you think it just to supply me with the psychologic reasons for your act.”
“How can you hold me, directly or indirectly, responsible for this tragedy? Am I in collusion with these bandits, do you suppose?”
I stood looking at her—no more; but for all her resolution she found something in that searching inquisition beyond her endurance; and her eyes fell before it, while a faint spot of colour came to her sallow cheek.
“Not you, Marion,” I said softly—“no, not you.”
She looked up quickly, with a desperate effort to recover her self-command.