"No! Do not perjure yourself," says she quickly, seeing him about to speak. "Do you think I do not know? That I cannot see by your face that there is something? I have studied it quite long enough to understand it. Come, Maurice. The past is the past—you have decided that—and it is a merely curious mood that leads me to ask you the secret of the great crime that has separated us. My crime, bien entendu!"
Rylton turns away from her with an impatient gesture, and goes back to the hearthrug. To persist like this! It is madness!
"There was no crime," says he. "But"—frowning—"as we are on the subject, and as you compel me to it, I——"
"No, don't speak. Don't!" says she quickly.
She seems to cower away from him. She had solicited his condemnation, yet when it came to the point she had no strength to bear it. And after all, is she had only known, he was merely going to accuse himself of having been over-foolish when he induced Tita to ask her to Oakdean on a visit.
"As you will," says he listlessly. "I was merely thinking of——"
"I know—I know. Of course she would make me out the worst in the world, and I have reason to know that her cousin, Miss Hescott, told you stories about me. There was a night when——
"When——"
"Ah, I was wrong there. I was merely thinking of——"
"Wrong!" says Rylton slowly.