“I say you speak in riddles.”
“Then I will be more explicit. For a week your supposed unwomanly conduct has been the talk of the whole village. They say that you have been led astray by an entire stranger, who has won your affections, and whom you have been meeting at an unbecoming hour and place. I need hardly tell you that I have met this wicked rumor with the contempt it deserves, but, I am sorry to say, that in which I have no faith is believed by every one else.”
Isabel Moreland bit her lip hard to stop its quivering, and the rich color came and went beneath the transparent surface of her cheeks. It was all plain to her now. At last she had explanation of the great change that had taken place in her former friends, and she knew why they treated her so coldly. She was silent for some time, and then, flashing her big, black eyes upon McCabe, she gave him a look that seemed to burn into his very soul.
“I know who started that report,” she said.
“What—you know who—well?”
“You did it, sir!”
“Eh?”
“I say, sir, that you were the originator of the malicious report of which you take delight in telling me.”
“I beg your pardon, madam, if I see fit to dispute your word, but I must say, in defense of myself, that you are speaking under a sad mistake. Why do you think me guilty of this wicked thing? Ah, I know. You are thinking of the night when I saw you in the glade, clasped in the embrace of that stranger.”
The girl dropped her eyes in confusion. Her heart heaved tumultuously with conflicting emotions, and a sinister smile curled his thin lips as he observed it.