“It didn’t help,” she whispered... “But you see—I am going to him in spite of it.”
“It was a cruel thing to let you believe that,” he said, and dropped her hands, and sat back against the cushions, watching her. “I’ll tell you the story as I heard it myself yesterday.”
And he related to her unreservedly the history of Tottie and her connection with Lawless in the recovery of the letters. When he had finished he found that she was quietly weeping with her face hidden in her gloveless hands.
He left her to herself and returning to his former seat sat stiffly upright, staring out of the window with unseeing eyes beneath their knitted brows. It would seem that those letters had more to answer for than even he had supposed. He wondered whether, could he have foreseen all that this enterprise would involve, he would have consented to its undertaking.
There was a prolonged silence. Mrs Lawless rose after a while, moved by what impulse he failed to understand, and dropped the sweet scented roses from the window. She turned round and faced him after doing so, and he felt that already she regretted the act.
“They were dying,” she explained, and went nearer to him and sat down opposite. “It was a foolish thought to pick them.”
“It was a kind thought,” he returned.
She looked at him gravely.
“Colonel Grey,” she said, “a man must hate a woman when he can let her believe—what my husband allowed me to believe. Nothing less than hate could be so cruel as that.”
He looked her straight in the eyes.