“Oh, I don’t know—people say it. And maybe I did do her an injustice in going there and spying on her, as you say. But you are the one who has done her a real injustice—the kind of injustice that hurts.”
“I!” he exclaimed, too surprised to defend himself. “What have I done?”
“You’ve kept it all so secret that you made people think there was something wrong about it.”
“Letitia,” he cried, in a tone of warning, “take care! You’ve meddled enough already.”
“You hid away your friendship with her as if it were shameful. You acted as if you were ashamed of her and of your knowing her—as if there was something wicked about her, so you couldn’t even speak of her to me or any other woman that you knew well. When I asked you about her, though you were too much of a man of honor to tell me a lie, you were not too much of a man of honor to act one. You gave her father money, but you were ashamed to acknowledge that you even knew her.”
“We’ve had enough of this conversation,” he said, now trembling with rage. “Let it end.”
He turned to leave the room, but Letitia’s voice arrested him, and he stood with his back to her, listening.
“You ought to have known enough to trust her,” she continued desperately, for she was singing the swan-song of her hopes. “You’ve only got to look into her face to see what she is. No matter what people say about her and her father, no matter what silly stories are repeated, even if there were other men who gave the colonel money—”
Letitia stopped. Gault had wheeled suddenly round upon her, and the expression of his face made the words die on her lips.
“Other men!” he repeated. “Who said that?”