“Please!” Miss La Chêne interrupted anxiously. “It was a kind and generous thing for Mr. Robinson to do for—”
“You have the effrontery to take his part against me?” cried Mrs. Robinson. “This—”
“W-wait!” said Robinson.
They all turned, startled by his tone. The harassed and wretched man had spoken with a sternness no one had ever heard him employ before. The spectacle of Miss La Chêne defending him was a little more than he could bear. He had come to the end of his tether. Indeed, he had cut it, and he stood free. His stammer had left him, and so had his nervous smile.
“Be good enough to keep your disgusting suspicions to yourself,” he said to his wife. “They only lower you in my eyes.”
“You dare—” she began.
“I’m sick and tired of being bullied and suspected and accused,” he went on. “Of course I bought this bracelet. I did it partly to save a defenseless girl, whom I knew to be innocent, from the outrageous treatment I knew she’d get at your hands; but I did it chiefly because I owed it to her. I was the last one to handle your accursed jewel case. I took it from Miss La Chêne in the city. I met her there the day you left. I had tea with her; and you can be proud or not of the fact that I was afraid to tell you I had spoken to her.”
The effect of this speech was tremendous. Every one in the room was stricken into sinister silence.
There stood Robinson, pale, but absolutely resolute, waiting for the storm to break. It was going to be awful, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to be badgered and bullied any more. Sheila was a fine woman. He always had thought so, and he thought so now, but she—
“Lucian!” breathed Mrs. Milner, as if in awe.