“Permit me to repeat your elegant retort, and remark, ‘That is a lie!’” said Varley.
“It is the truth,” said Trafford. “I have seen them here—together.”
Varley raised his brows.
“You appear to be laboring under a strange delusion, your grace,” he said, with sardonic courtesy. “You appear, also, to forget that, though Esmeralda is, or was, your wife, she was, and still is, my ward, and that I have the right to repel any false accusation you make against her.”
Trafford looked at him without speaking for a moment; then he said, hoarsely:
“When I say that she has come to Three Star with a man with whom she fled from me, I speak the truth, and you know it. I have seen them together.”
“And I say again—you lie!” said Varley. “Esmeralda came to Three Star to claim my protection from the man who had married her and betrayed her. Stop—do not speak! It is my call, I believe. I have wanted to meet you very badly, my lord duke. I have had something on my mind that I wanted to say to you, and Providence has granted my wish. You will have to listen to what I have to say. My child”—his cool, almost nonchalant voice very nearly broke—“Esmeralda, left me and the people among whom she had been brought up, and who loved her, in a way that you could scarcely understand, a happy, light-hearted girl. She went to England and met you and your kind, and you took advantage of her innocence and her ignorance of your world, and tricked and trapped her as we over here trick and entrap some wild and helpless bird. You married her for her money; you cared nothing for her. No doubt you made a jest of your success and laughed among yourselves. Having got possession of her money, you lost no time in breaking her heart.”
Trafford stood rigid and motionless, the big drops of sweat gathering on his brow.
“But you were not satisfied with that; you must needs cover her with shame and dishonor. You accuse her of being a vile and abandoned woman, and you come here to press your charge and torment her further. My lord duke, you could not have come to a better place. If you had searched the world over you could not have found a man better fitted to thrust the lie down your throat. Esmeralda has been to me like a daughter of my own. I know what she was; I know what she is—the purest and best of women—and I tell you that you are a liar and a scoundrel!”
Trafford extended his hand half imploringly, half defiantly.