She had almost answered him before she remembered, and checked the words upon her lips. "No, I don't think I need tell you that," she said.
"That is better than telling me a lie," he rejoined. "As a matter of fact, there is no need, as you say, for you to tell me. I know what sum he asked for, and I know how he obtained it."
He spoke with steady conviction, his eyes unwaveringly upon her. For seconds now she had endured his look without flinching. As she had said, there was nothing left for her to fear. But at his words her face changed, and unmistakable apprehension took the place of despair.
"No, no!" she said quickly. "He did not obtain it in that way. At least—at least—Trevor, I swear to you that Bertrand knew nothing of that."
"You need not take that trouble," he said coldly.
She gripped her hands together. "You don't believe me—but it is the truth. Bertrand never knew that I had heard from Captain Rodolphe."
"You deceived him too, then?" Pitilessly he asked the question. He also had begun to feel that nothing could ever matter any more.
She wrung her hands in anguish. Her face was still raised to his, white and strained and desperate—the face of a woman who would never dissemble with him again. "Yes," she said, "I deceived him too."
"Then"—slowly he uttered the words—"it was you who forged my name upon that cheque? It actually was you whom he was shielding? And you tell me that he did not know what it was for?"
"He did not know," she said. She would not have given such an explanation of her own volition at that moment, but—since upon this point she could not tell him the truth—it was simpler to let it pass. What did it matter, after all? Let him think her a thief also if he would! She was past caring what he thought.