"Then you quite understand his character?"
"I do now," Mrs. Hannaford replied wretchedly. "But I must tell you more. If it were only a suspicion of my husband's I should hardly care at all. But someone must have betrayed me to him, and have told deliberate falsehoods. I am accused—it was when I was at the seaside once—and he came to the same hotel—Oh, the shame, the shame!"
She covered her face with her hands, and turned away.
"Why," cried Piers, in wrath, "that fellow is quite capable of having betrayed you himself. I mean, of lying about you for his own purposes."
"You think he could be so wicked?"
"I don't doubt it for a moment. He has done his best to persuade you to ruin yourself for him, and he thinks, no doubt, that if you are divorced, nothing will stand between him and you—in other words, your money."
"He said, when I saw him yesterday, that now it had come to this, I had better take that step at once. And when I spoke of my innocence, he asked who would believe it? He seemed sorry; really he did. Perhaps he is not so bad as one fears?"
"Where did you see him yesterday?" asked Otway.
"At his lodgings. I was obliged to go and see him as soon as possible. I have never been there before. He behaved very kindly. He said of course he should declare my innocence——"
"And in the same breath assured you no one would believe it? And advised you to go off with him at once?"