For a few seconds Jill sat mute, too thoroughly taken by surprise even to move. No lurking suspicion had ever entered her pure, wholesome, unspoilt mind that any man could so insult a decent woman. Even then it struck her that in some way she must have unconsciously given him an opening. How else would he have dared to make love to her, and to seem so assured that his love would be returned?
She drew herself away from him, not violently, but with a cold displeasure that carried more weight than any fierce resentment could have done, and in a voice that trembled slightly with repressed anger exclaimed as she rose and faced him,—
“Mr Markham, you have insulted me past forgiveness. If any action or word of mine has led you to speak as you have done I deplore it with my whole heart—I couldn’t feel more humiliated even if such were the case; I feel so abjectly debased as it is. How dare you imply that I do not get on with my husband? I love him with the whole force of my being. I doubt if you could understand or appreciate such love as ours.”
“I doubt it too,” he sneered. “My love is not of the kind that can so readily efface itself. You are rather unreasonable, I think; a man can’t help his feelings. Some women would take it as a compliment.”
“I am sorry for the sort of women you seem acquainted with,” she answered rather sadly. “You have formed a very low opinion of the sex. It is not a compliment that you have paid me, and you know it. Don’t say anything more please; I decline to discuss that, or any other subject with you. I must request you to leave my rooms, and never to enter them again. You have made further intercourse an impossibility, and our past friendship something to be remembered only with regret.”
“Don’t say that,” he began pleadingly; but Jill cut him short.
“Please understand that I am quite in earnest,” she said. “When Jack comes home I shall explain to him what has happened; it is well that he should understand the true character of his friend. I can never thank heaven sufficiently that my husband is both a man of honour, and a gentleman.”
“For that matter so should I have been if I had met you first,” he answered gloomily. “You are rather hard on me, Jill. Perhaps I have been too precipitate; but I love you so madly, and to-day you seemed so sad, and sweet, and lonely, that I wanted to comfort you.”
“Enough!” exclaimed Jill excitedly. “If you don’t go I shall ask Mr Thompkins to come and protect me from further indignity. How contemptible you are!—how mean! Why don’t you insult me when my husband is at home? The sight of you is hateful to me. Why won’t you go?”
“I will,” he answered quietly, “as you wish it. I do not want to frighten you; but remember—always remember that I love you with all my heart.”