‘There’s such a thing as lying when you tell the truth. Do you remember that I met you coming back to the Manor that Monday afternoon, a month ago, and asked you where you’d been?’
Her heart stood still.
‘Answer me, will you?’
‘I remember it.’
‘You told me you’d been for a walk in the wood. You forgot to say who it was you went to meet.’
How did he know of this? But that thought came to her only to pass. She understood at length the whole extent of his suspicion. It was not only her secret feelings that he called in question, he accused her of actual dishonour as it is defined by the world—that clumsy world with its topsy-turvydom of moral judgments. To have this certainty flashed upon her was, as soon as she had recovered from the shock, a sensible assuagement of her misery. In face of this she could stand her ground. Her womanhood was in arms; she faced him scornfully.
‘Will you please to make plain your charge against me?’
‘I think it’s plain enough. If a married woman makes appointments in quiet places with a man she has no business to see anywhere, what’s that called? I fancy I’ve seen something of that kind before now in cases before the Divorce Court.’
It angered him that she was not overwhelmed. He saw that she did not mean to deny having met Eldon, and to have Alice’s story thus confirmed inflamed his jealousy beyond endurance.
‘You must believe of me what you like,’ Adela replied in a slow, subdued voice. ‘My word would be vain against that of my accuser, whoever it is.’