"The Viscount Cranford answers to me," he said, briefly.
The duchess paled as she looked at him.
"Not that, Fritz!" she cried. "Not that!"
"Too late, madame," he said. "My honour demands it."
The duchess shivered, and her face seemed suddenly to shrink and age. Then she stood proudly upright. What honour demanded she would be the last to evade.
"Perhaps monsieur will deny," she said, looking at Cranford, coldly, "that he wrote this note to her and her sister the very first day of his sojourn here?" and she held out to him the slip of paper.
Cranford took it and read it at a glance, while Nell stared at it with starting eyes.
"No," he said, "I don't deny that I wrote it; but—"
"And perhaps mademoiselle herself will deny that she asserted to Monsieur Tellier that she did not know her rescuer? Here are her words," and she produced a second note.
"I deny nothing," said Susie, proudly, and she looked the duchess unflinchingly in the face.