“Mr. Winton! Is that generous?”
“No; perhaps it is hardly just. Because I counted the cost and have paid the price open-eyed. You may remember that I told you that first evening I should come as often as I dared. I knew then, what I have known all along: that it was a part of your uncle's plan to delay my work.”
“His and mine, you mean; only you are too kind—or not quite brave enough—to say so.”
“Yours? Never! If I could believe you capable of such a thing—”
“You may believe it,” she broke in. “It was I who suggested it.”
He drew a deep breath, and she heard his teeth come together with a click. It was enough to try the faith of the loyalest lover: it tried his sorely. Yet he scarcely needed her low-voiced, “Don't you despise me as I deserve, now?” to make him love her all the more.
“Indeed, I don't. Resentment and love can hardly find room in the same heart at the same time, and I have said that I love you,” he rejoined quickly.
She went silent at that, and when she spoke again the listening Jastrow tuned his ear afresh to lose no word.
“As I have confessed, I suggested it: it was just after I had seen your men and the sheriff's ready to fly at one another's throats. I was miserably afraid, and I asked Uncle Somerville if he could not make terms with you in some other way. I didn't mean—”
He made haste to help her.