"I will not conceal from you that I knew of your destination, of your appointment."
"You acted the spy!" she articulated.
"I acted rather the guardian!" he said. "What kind of love, how poor and inactive that would be, which could remain quiescent while the future of its object was at stake!"
Stella put up her hand to silence him.
"I do not care—I will not listen to your fine phrases. They do not move me, Mr. Adelstone. To your devotion and—and attachment I am indifferent; I refuse to accept them. I await your explanations. If you have none to give, I will go," and she made a movement as if to depart.
"Wait, I implore, I advise you."
Stella stopped.
"Hear me to the end," he said. "You will not permit me to allude to the passionate love which is my excuse and my warranty for what I have done. So be it. I will speak of it no more, if I can so control myself as to refrain from doing so. I will speak of yourself and—and of the man who plots your ruin."
Stella opened her lips, but refrained from speech, and merely smiled a smile of pitiless scorn.
"I speak of Lord Leycester Wyndward," said Jasper Adelstone, the name leaving his lips as if every word tortured them. "It is true, is it not, that this Lord Leycester has asked you to meet him at a place in London—at Bruton Street, his lodgings? It is true that he has told you that he was prepared to make you his wife!"