“Ask, sir.”
“The other night, when I had left you, where did you go in your carriage?”
He expected to see her confused, turning pale, stammer. Not at all.
“What, you know that?” she said, with an accent of admirable candor. “Ah! I committed an act of almost as great imprudence as I now do. If some fool should see me leave your rooms?”
“Pardon me, Miss Brandon, that is no answer to my question. Where did you go?”
And as she kept silent, surprised by Daniel’s firmness, he said sneeringly,—
“Then you confess that it would be madness to believe you? Let us break off here, and pray to God that I may be able to forget all the wrong you have done me.”
Miss Brandon’s beautiful eyes filled with tears of grief or of rage. She folded her hands, and said in a suppliant tone,—
“I conjure you, M. Champcey, grant me only five minutes. I must speak to you. If you knew”—
He could not turn her out; he bowed profoundly before her, and withdrew into his bedroom, closing the door behind him. But he immediately applied his eye to the keyhole, and saw Miss Brandon, her features convulsed with rage, threaten him with her closed hand, and leave the room hastily.