"Deceived!" she echoed the word as if its significance were lost upon her. "Deceived!"
"Yes. Cruelly. But you must not blame him altogether.
"Blame him. Whom?" she said slowly.
"Yorke, Yorke," he said in a low voice. "It was as much my fault as his. I ought to have told you. We have both deceived you wickedly, inexcusably."
Leslie put out her hand and caught the chair, and stood looking down at him.
"Blame me more than him," he went on. "Blame us both. We ought to have told you, at any rate, however we kept other people in the dark. But he was not free, and I—well, I held my tongue."
"He was not free?" she murmured mechanically.
"No! I don't ask you to forgive us; you'd find it too hard. I don't expect you even to understand the motive."
She put out her hand to him.
"Wait—stop! Let me think. He has deceived me, then?"