‘Geoffrey Brotherton.’
‘He! He has been telling you—’
‘No—thank heaven! I have not yet sunk to the slightest communication with him.’
She turned her face aside. Veiled as it was by the gathering gloom, she yet could not keep it towards me. But after a brief pause she looked at me and said,
‘You know more than—I do not know what you mean.’
‘I do know more than you think I know. I will tell you under what circumstances I came to such knowledge.’
She stood motionless.
‘One evening,’ I went on, ‘after leaving Moldwarp Hall with Charles Osborne, I returned to the library to fetch a book. As I entered the room where it lay, I heard voices in the armoury. One was the voice of Geoffrey Brotherton—a man you told me you hated. The other was yours.’
She drew herself up, and stood stately before me.
‘Is that your accusation?’ she said. ‘Is a woman never to speak to a man because she detests him?’