‘Then I am right,’ cried he, almost insolently. ‘I have hit the blot.’
A glance, a mere glance of haughty disdain, was the only reply she made.
‘I am shocked, Maude,’ said he at last. ‘I am ashamed that we should spend in this way perhaps the very last few minutes we shall ever pass together. Heart-broken as I am, I should desire to carry away one memory at least of her whose love was the loadstar of my existence.’
‘I want my letters, Cecil,’ said she coldly.
‘So that you came down here with mine, prepared for this rupture, Maude? It was all prearranged in your mind.’
‘More discretion—more discretion, or good taste—which is it?’
‘I ask pardon, most humbly I ask it; your rebuke was quite just. I was presuming upon a past which has no relation to the present. I shall not offend any more. And now, what was it you said?’
‘I want my letters.’
‘They are here,’ said he, drawing a thick envelope fully crammed with letters from his pocket and placing it in her hand. ‘Scarcely as carefully or as nicely kept as mine, for they have been read over too many times; and with what rapture, Maude. How pressed to my heart and to my lips, how treasured! Shall I tell you?’
There was that of exaggerated passion—almost rant—in these last words, that certainly did not impress them with reality; and either Lady Maude was right in doubting their sincerity, or cruelly unjust, for she smiled faintly as she heard them.