“You know how Clotilde loved me, Marie?”
Marie’s dark eyes gazed fully, pityingly into his, but there was a slight curl of scorn upon her upper lip as she remained silent.
“No,” she said slowly, as she shook her head; “no, I do not.”
“You—do not!”
Marie hesitated to plant so sharp a sting in his heart, but, still, she panted to speak—to tell him that he had wasted his honest love upon one who did not value it, in the hope that he might turn to her; but at the same time she feared to overstep the mark, and her compunction to hurt the man she loved came and went.
“Why do you not tell me what you mean?” he said, pressing one of her hands so that he caused her intense pain.
“Because I shrink from telling you that Clotilde never cared for you in the least,” she said bitterly.
“How dare you say that?” he cried.
“If she had loved you, Captain Glen, would she have accepted Mr Elbraham for the sake of his wealth?”
He would have dropped her hand, but she held fast, full of passionate grief for him as she saw how deadly pale he had turned, and had they been in a less public place she would have clung to him, and told him how her heart bled for his pain.