“You were bound to be,” she answered. “And you might have been hurt in body as well as in mind. It’s something if he’s enough broken in to treat you properly.”
“As to that, he did. I’ll come to him. But what’s hurt me, Medora, a long way worse than anything Mr. Dingle had to say has got to do with you.”
“If you’ve been believing his lies—”
“It ain’t so much his lies as yours. I’m not one to use hard words as a rule. But it’s your letter to him.”
“Well, what about it?”
“I’ve read it—that’s all.”
She realised the significance of this and blushed hotly.
“Why didn’t you send the letter I helped you to write?” he asked.
“Because—because when you’re boiling with injustice and wicked injury—when I read it, I saw it was you and not me. He’d have known you wrote it, yet it was to be my letter; so I made it mine and told him the ugly truth about himself, which you’d been careful not to do. According to your letter, there was no reason why I should leave him at all that I could see. It was that nice and cool. But I was going to do things that you don’t do when you’re nice and cool, so I told him the truth straight out, as he deserved to hear it. It’s no good mincing your meaning with a man like him.”
“You told me you’d sent our letter, however.”