'But at least you will tell me what I am supposed to have said.'
Alma hesitated, and only after several interchanges of question and answer did the full extent of her accusation appear. Thereupon Mrs Strangeways smiled, as if with forbearance.
'Now I understand. But I have been cruelly misrepresented. I heard such a rumour, and I did my best to contradict it. I heard it, unfortunately, more than once.'
Again Alma found herself in conflict with an adroitness, a self-possession, so much beyond her own, that the sense of being maliciously played with goaded her into rage.
'No one but yourself could ever have started such a story!'
'You mean,' sounded the other voice, still soft, though not quite so amiable, 'that I was the only person who knew——'
And there Mrs. Strangeways paused, as if discreetly.
'Knew? Knew what?'
'Only that you had reason for a little spite against your dear friend.'
'Suppose it was so,' exclaimed Alma, remembering too well her last conversation with this woman. 'Whatever you knew, or thought you knew, about me—and it was little enough—you have been making use of it disgracefully.'