"I hope you will believe," Miss Brandon said, "that it was quite involuntarily I became a spy on your actions. I did not overhear one word; and my partner had that moment left me, when I saw—" Not all her self-command could check the shudder that ran through every limb, and the choking in her throat that would interrupt her.
"I have very little to add," she went on, more steadily. "After what I witnessed, I need hardly say that we only meet again as the merest strangers. You might think meanly of me, indeed, if I ever allowed your lips to touch my cheek or my hand again. Remember, I told you from the first we were not suited to each other; perhaps I deserve all I have met with for allowing myself to be overruled. You can not contradict a word of this, or say that it is unjust or severe."
Did she pause in the expectation or the hope of an excuse, or an appeal from her hearer? Only the hoarse answer came,
"I have forfeited the right to defend myself or to gainsay you."
"You would find it difficult to do either," Constance rejoined, rather more haughtily; perhaps she was disappointed in the tone of his reply. "One word more: if my name is ever called in question, I am sure no one will defend it more readily than yourself. My voice will never be heard against you; and if, hereafter, you shall desire my forgiveness more than you now do; remember, I have given it unasked and freely."
Guy's tone was pregnant with cold, cruel irony as he answered,
"I congratulate you on your position, Miss Brandon; it is quite unassailable. You are in the right now, as you always have been. You were right, of course, in always doling out the tokens of your love in such scanty measure as your pride and your priests would allow. They ought to canonize you—those holy men! I doubt if they have another disciple so superior to all human weaknesses. It must be very gratifying to so eminent a Christian to be able to forgive plenarily, without danger of the favor being returned. I have nothing to urge against your decision—that we part forever. You will have no difficulty in forgetting me, whom you ought never to have stooped to. Yet I will give you one caution. I am not romantic, as you know, and I generally mean what I say. If you should think hereafter of bestowing yourself on some worthier object, hesitate a little for his sake, or wait till I am dead; otherwise, the day that makes his happiness certain may bring him very near his grave."
His voice had changed during the last words into a growl of savage menace, and his forehead was black and furrowed with passion.
It might have been his own excited fancy, or the passing just then of a light cloud over the moon; but, for an instant, he thought he saw her steady lip quiver and tremble. If so, be very sure it was not fear which caused the emotion, though even that the circumstances might have excused; rather, I think, it was a pang of self-reproach—a consciousness of having acted unwisely, though for the best; perhaps, too, the stubbornness of the heart she had ruled once—so strong and proud even in its abasement—was congenial to her own besetting sin: she liked the fierce threat better than the cool sarcasm. At any rate, she answered more gently than she had yet spoken.
"I believe you. But you know me better than to think a threat would influence me. Yet you need not fear my ever again trusting this world with my happiness. You will be very sorry hereafter for some things you have said to-night. Ask yourself—if I had loved you, as you seem to have expected, better than my own soul, would the result have been different? It is too late now to say any thing but—farewell. Will you not say it, as I do, kindly, or at least not in anger—Guy?"