“Did you wish to ask me something, Mrs Hallam!” said Bayle, at last. “Is it some commission you wish me to undertake?”
“Stop a moment,” she said hoarsely. Then, as if by a tremendous effort over herself, she tried to steady her voice, and to speak indignantly, as she exclaimed:
“Christie Bayle, why have you humiliated me like this?”
He started, for he had not the remotest idea that she had learnt his secret.
“Humiliated you?” he said. “Oh, no, I could not have done that.”
“I have trusted you so well—looked upon you as a brother, and now at the eleventh hour of my home life, I find that even you have not deserved my trust.”
“Indeed!” he said, smiling. “What have I done?”
“What have you done?” she cried indignantly, her emotion begetting a kind of unreason, and making her bitter in her words. “What have I done in my misery and misfortune that you should take advantage of my position? That man to-night has told me all.”
“I hardly understand you,” he said gravely.
“Not understand? He has told me that when that terrible trouble came upon me, it did not come singly, and that I was left penniless to battle with the world. Is this true?”