She did not ask what he had heard, or attempt any defence; the sound of his voice, deep and resonant after the long silence, had set her heart beating, and rendered her answer a matter of difficulty.
"It is a strange story, and I have been hoping it might have been explained away by some means not only unnatural—I can almost believe that it is all a dream, and no cruel waking is to follow it. Harriet, may I ask if your father is aware of this?"
"He is not yet."
"You were travelling alone with a gentleman—I will call him a gentleman for the sake of argument—in the middle of the night by the Dover mail train; at Ashford you leave the carriage abruptly, and demand protection from him—speak of a trap into which he had led you, and seek counsel of that man we met at Mattie's house to-night?"
"But——"
"But do not misunderstand me, Harriet—I can read the story for myself; I can see that you were deceived in this man, and had no consciousness of the snare prepared for you, until the hour was too late. I can believe that your sense of right was outraged, and the gentleman merited all the scorn which he received—but who was this man to whom you could trust yourself at that hour, and by what right were you, under any circumstances, his companion?"
"He was a man I met at Mrs. Eveleigh's—he offered to escort me to the railway station."
"A stranger?"
"No—I had met him at Brighton, before then, when I was a school-girl. He—he paid me attentions there which flattered my girlish vanity; and—and then I met him again at Mrs. Eveleigh's."
"What is his name?"