‘What do you mean by betraying you?’
I recounted what I had overheard. He listened with clenched teeth and trembling white lips; then burst into a forced laugh. ‘What a fool I am! Distrust her! I will not. There is some explanation! There must be!’
The dew of agony lay thick on his forehead. I was greatly alarmed at what I had done, but I could not blame myself.
‘Do be calm, Charley,’ I entreated.
‘I am as calm as death,’ he replied, striding up and down the room with long strides.
He stopped and came up to me again.
‘Wilfrid,’ he said, ‘I am a damned fool. I am going now. Don’t be frightened—I am perfectly calm. I will come and explain it all to you to-morrow—no—the next day—or the next at latest. She had some reason for hiding it from me, but I shall have it all the moment I ask her. She is not what you think her. I don’t for a moment blame you—but—are you sure it was—Clara’s—voice you heard?’ he added with forced calmness and slow utterance.
‘A man is not likely to mistake the voice of a woman he ever fancied himself in love with.’
‘Don’t talk like that, Wilfrid. You’ll drive me mad. How should she know you had taken the sword?’
‘She was always urging me to take it. There lies the main sting of the treachery. But I never told you where I found the sword.’