The color faded from her face, she drew herself up to her full height, her eyes flashing, her bosom heaving. It was not only Esmeralda of Three Star Camp but the Marchioness of Trafford that spoke in every line of her face, in the almost imperial gesture with which she extended her hand.
“That letter is mine!” she said, defiantly and haughtily. “Where did you get it?”
“You confess, then?” he said.
“I confess—I deny—nothing!” she said. “Give me my letter!”
She snatched it from him and pressed the hand in which it was gripped against her throbbing heart. Trafford gazed at her with a smoldering fire in his eyes, his teeth clinched.
“The truth now stands between us,” he said. “It was because I held conclusive proof of your guilt that I asked you to spare us both. I will now ask you to listen to the proposal I have come to make to you. Ignorant of the world as you are, you will know that it is impossible that we should live together under the same roof any longer. It is impossible that we can breathe the same air.”
She stood perfectly motionless, her eyes meeting his steadily.
“You must know,” he went on, “that I could put you away from me—that the law could divide us and set us free—but I do not intend to ask for a divorce. No shadow of such shame has ever fallen upon my people. I am desirous of averting it now. You shall remain my wife still in the eyes of the law and the world; you shall remain here, at Belfayre, or where you please, still bearing my name and taking your place in the world as the Marchioness of Trafford.”
She neither moved nor spoke, but waited for the end.
“I make only one condition,” he said. “You can guess that?”