But no comfort of doubting seemed to cross the darkness of Jean's backward look into the past.
'Oh, why did you do it?'
'What, in the name of——? What has she been saying to you?'
'Some one else told me part. Then the way you looked when you saw her at Aunt Ellen's—Miss Levering's saying you didn't know her—then your letting out that you knew even the curious name on the handkerchief—oh, I pieced it together.'
While she poured out the disjointed sentences, he had recovered his self-possession.
'Your ingenuity is undeniable,' he said coldly, rising to his feet. But he paused as the girl went on—
'And then when she said that at the meeting about "the dark hour," and I looked at her face, it flashed over me——Oh, why did you desert her?'
It was as if the iteration of that charge stung him out of his chill anger.
'I didn't desert her,' he said.
'Ah-h!' Her hands went fluttering up to her eyes, and hid the quivering face. Something in the action touched him, his face changed, and he made a sudden passionate movement toward the trembling figure standing there with hidden eyes. In another moment his arms would have been round her. Her muffled voice saying, 'I'm glad. I'm glad,' checked him. He stood bewildered, making with noiseless lips the word 'Glad?' She was 'glad' he hadn't tired of her rival? The girl brushed the tears from her eyes, and steadied herself against the table.