She stared at him in silence for a few moments. “What have you been told?” she asked at last. “You cannot have failed to learn the truth,” said he. “You cannot have failed to see that Claude Westwood is in love with that girl.”
With a little cry she had sprung to her feet and grasped his arm.
“No, no; not that—not that!” she whispered. “Oh no; that would be too horrible!”
“It is horrible to think that a man can forget all that he has forgotten. Good heavens! After eight years! Was ever woman so true? Was ever man so false?”
“I have been blind—blind! Whatever I may have thought, I never imagined this. He met her aboard the steamer—he must have become attached to her before he saw her with me.”
She was speaking in a low voice and without looking at him. He remained silent. She walked across the room with nervous steps. Several times she passed and repassed the picture on the easel, her fingers twitching at the lace of her dress.
Gradually then her steps became firmer and more deliberate. The sound of a rippling laugh came from the other room. She stopped suddenly in her restless pacing of the floor. She looked at the portrait on the easel, and after a short space, she too laughed.
“It is a just punishment!” she said. “He loves her and she loves another—she confessed it to me. He will be punished, and no one will pity him.”
Then Clare reappeared in the arch from which the curtain had been drawn, and Claude followed her.
Agnes glanced first at the girl, then at the man. She looked toward Sir Percival and smiled.