“Is there any need for this?” said Leo sharply. “There, if you wish to know, I have been to Candlish Hall. Sir Thomas is forbidden this house, so you force me to go to him. You knew where I had been.”
“Yes, I knew where you had been,” assented Salis, as Mary looked from one to the other, not knowing what to say.
“Now, answer me a question,” cried Leo fiercely. “Was it Horace North, in his mean, contemptible, jealous spite, who set you to watch me?”
“Leo!” cried Mary, stung to words by her sister’s accusation.
“Silence! What is it to you, you miserable worm?” cried Leo furiously. “My home has been made a purgatory for months past by you and dear Hartley here. Plotting together both of you to make me miserable, to treat me as a little girl, and to check me at every turn. What Hartley did not try, you thought, and suggested to him till my very soul recoiled against you both and your miserable tyranny. I say it was North—the mean wretch—who set you to watch me.”
“Horace North is too true a man to give you a second thought; too stern and upright to speak of you after your cruel treachery to him.”
“It is not true. I was neither cruel nor treacherous to him,” cried Leo.
“He told me nothing. Your acts are growing public, or I should not have known what I know now; and this must have an end.”
“What end?” said Leo shrewishly. “Am I to be confined to my room? Bah! I have had enough of all this. Yes, I have been to see the man I love, and will go again and again.”
“To your disgrace.”