“What? You will not understand that Sarah is your rival; that she has loved M. Champcey; that she is still madly in love with him? Ah! they have deceived Mrs. Brian and myself cruelly.”
“How so?”
He turned his head aside, and murmured, as if speaking to himself,—
“———— ———— was her lover.”
Miss Ville-Handry discerned the truth with admirable instinct, drew herself up, and said in her most energetic way,—
“That is false!”
Sir Thorn trembled; but that was all.
“You have asked me to tell the truth,” he said coldly, “and I have done so. Try to remember. Have you forgotten that little scene, after which M. Champcey fled from our house in the middle of the night, bareheaded, without taking his overcoat?”
“Sir?”
“Did you not think that was extraordinary? That night, you see, we discovered the whole thing. After having been one of the foremost to recommend to Sarah to marry your father, M. Champcey came and asked her to give up that marriage. He had, before that, tried to have it broken off through your agency, madam, using thus his influence over you, his betrothed, for the benefit of his passion.”