“You are saying that you never ceased to love her?”
“I am saying that since I met her I’ve never given another woman two thoughts except to wish to God that she was somewhere else.”
“That was why you went to meet Madeleine Bellamy at the gardener’s cottage?”
“That,” said Mr. Ives imperturbably, “is precisely why I went to meet Madeleine Bellamy at the gardener’s cottage.”
Before the cool indifference of his eye the ugly sneer on Lambert’s countenance wavered for a moment, deepened. “You deny that you wrote these letters?”
Pat Ives bent on the small packet flourished beneath his eye a careless glance. “Not for a moment.”
“Were they or were they not written after rendezvous had taken place between you and Mrs. Bellamy?”
“Two of them were written after what you are pleased to describe as rendezvous had taken place—one before.”
“And where, Mr. Ives, was your wife at the time of these meetings—on June eighth, June ninth and May twenty-second?”
“I don’t know.”