“And she loved you so—before!”
His face flushed, then went white.
“You are mistaken,” he said, grimly. “She never loved me.”
“Never? You are mad!”
“No! I have been, but I am sane now. She never loved me. She loved the man she has gone off with.”
Lady Wyndover sprung to her feet.
“Oh, you are mad!” she cried, with a kind of helpless scorn. “Esmeralda loved the ground on which you trod! I know it—I know it! Do you hear?”
“I hear,” he said, bitterly. “But you are wrong. She deceived you—all—as she deceived me. She loved Norman Druce—she left Belfayre with him.”
“It is a lie!” sprung from Lady Wyndover’s lips; and she went white with passionate indignation. “It is a foolish lie! She loved you, and only you, I tell you! I have heard her— Oh, what is the use! Do you think a woman does not know whom another woman loves? The girl was like my own—had no secrets from me.”
“Save this one,” he said. “Be calm, and listen to me; you will need all your calmness. Esmeralda and—and Norman”—his teeth clinched after he had spoken the name—“had met at the place she came from—Three Star. He had proposed to her there, and—why, I know not—she had refused him; but she must have loved him, for she has gone away with him. They have been together at Belfayre. Oh, do you not see how the devilish thing has been brought about? Separated from me—a wife in name only—the presence of the man who had loved her in the past, still loved her. Yes, it must be plain enough even to you!”