"Are you going?" she fiercely demanded.
"I am going," he said, recovering his self-possession. "I am going. But, Mrs. Grey, I am more surprised and grieved than I have words to express. I shall never, willingly, voluntarily approach you again. If, however, you should ever need a friend, do not hesitate to call on me as freely as you would upon a brother, and I shall serve you in any way in my power as willingly as if you were my own sister."
"Ur-ur-ur-r-r!" she broke forth, in an inarticulate growl of disgust and abhorrence.
"Good-bye!" he said, very gently, as he bowed and left the room.
Nothing but sympathy and compassion for this "poor woman," as he called her, filled his heart.
Her outbreak of hysterical passion had been a revelation to him; but it had shown him only half the truth. In its light he saw that she loved him still, but he did not see that she hated her rival. He saw that she was jealous, but did not see that she was revengeful.
He reproached himself bitterly, bitterly, for ever having fallen under her spell, for ever having loved her, or sought to win her love, and for thus being the remote cause of her present sorrows.
He had never confided to Emma Cavendish the story of his first foolish, boyish love, and sufferings and cure. For Mary Grey's sake he had kept that secret from his betrothed, from whom he had no other secret in the world.
But now he felt that he must tell Emma the truth, gently and lovingly, lest Mary Grey should do it rudely and angrily.
For Mary Grey's sake he had hitherto been silent. For his own and Emma Cavendish's sake he must now speak.