"You have always distrusted me," said Rathborne, bitterly.
"No," she replied, gravely; "so far from that, I trusted you as my own son, though I did not think you were the person to make Helen happy. I had always a fear that you did not care for her enough, and now I am forced to believe that you did not care for her at all. If you had done so, this could never have happened, just as it could never have happened if you had possessed the right principle and the sense of honor which I should certainly wish my daughter's husband to possess."
Rathborne could hardly believe the evidence of his ears as he listened to these severe, incisive words. He had always regarded Mrs. Dalton as a person who was mild to weakness, and whom, whenever it suited him, he could influence in whatever manner desired. He therefore scarcely recognized this woman, with her sentence of condemnation based on premises which he could not deny, though he made a faint attempt to do so.
"You do not understand," he said, "how a brief infatuation—a delirium of fancy—can attack a man, let his sense of honor be what it may. As for my attachment to Helen, that is something which has lasted too long to be doubted now."
"Will you inform me, then, how you proposed to reconcile it with your declaration to Marion?"
"That was drawn from me—forced from me!" he exclaimed. "It was a madness of the moment, into which I was led by her art."
Mrs. Dalton rose now, a bright spot of color on each check. "That is enough!" she said. "I can listen to nothing more. No man of honor would, for his own sake, utter such words as those—even if they were true, and I am sure they are not. Great as my niece's faults may be, she is incapable of such conduct as you charge her with. Go, Paul Rathborne! By such excuses you only prove more and more how unworthy you are of Helen's affection or Helen's trust."
"Very well," he answered, his face white and bitter with anger. "As you and she have decided, so be it. But take care that the day does not come when you will deeply regret this decision."
Then he turned, and, without giving her time to reply had she been so inclined, left the room.
Mrs. Dalton looked after him with a heavy sigh. Regret her decision she knew that she would not; but it would be vain to say that she did not regret the necessity for it, that she did not think with a keen pang of Helen's suffering, and that she did not feel, with much bitterness, that Marion had not been guiltless in the matter. Yet even in the midst of her indignation she had pity for the girl, whose vanity and ambition were likely to wreck her life, as they had already gone far to alienate her best friends.