It seemed as if he had almost lost the power of speech, there was so long a pause after her tremulous question.
“Do you not know?” he said, at last, and his voice was hoarse and stern. “I have come to speak to you, Esmeralda, for the last time. Let there be as few words as possible between us. I have been thinking over your shameful secret, and I have arrived at a decision regarding your future—and mine.”
Esmeralda gazed at him, speechless. Had he gone mad? “Shameful secret!” What did he, what could he mean?
“My—my shameful secret!” she said, dully. “What is it that you mean?”
“Spare us both!” he said, sternly. “Do not force me to formulate the wrong you have done me. Let it be taken for granted that my knowledge of your sin is as full and complete as your own.”
“My sin—my sin!” she said, not indignantly, not yet angrily, but with an overwhelming amazement and fear; for she thought that in very truth he had gone mad.
He looked at her steadily.
“I was behind the bank in the fernery to-night,” he said in a low voice.
“Well?” she demanded.
The rage in his heart flamed in his face for a moment, then left it white again.