He stood beside me in silence, looking at the sea. Then, without warning, he broke out with terrible words of anger. Not to me. It was as though he arraigned the universe and shook his fist at the stars.
"A thousand curses!" he cried; "a thousand curses on their heads who have brought us all to this! It is not to be borne! It is a tangle of fiends. Great God! To be loved by the two best women on earth, and then, instead of happiness, to find it end in misery all round! It is the work of devils! It is not to be borne!"
He remembered me at his side, and fought down his wrath. At last he turned to me an ashen face, and began:
"There is much to say. Where will you sit down?"
"Nowhere," I answered. "No, do not touch me again. What there is to be said ... say."
We stood an arm's-length apart on the stones, and he spoke:
"Gertrude Langley," he said, "for five weeks I have loved you, and there is no woman in the world, save you, that I ever did love or ever shall. But, through a string of ghastly blunders hardly to be explained or even believed, I have loved you under another name, and amid wildly false notions of your station. Be hurt at nothing I shall say. I believed, on twofold testimony, that you were Susan, your maid. Do not be galled or insulted till you have heard me out."
"You cannot insult me," I said. "Besides, I know all."
"No!" he cried, "you do not know. You know that I have written Susan letters, that I have badgered her to marry me, that I have followed her to Sainte Véronique, and that I am to set eyes upon her to-morrow. But, listen. I will tell you what you do not know. You don't know that this poor girl has a heart of gold, a soul of fire, a mind that is a fountain of gems. Did you know that?"
"No," I said, "I did not."