“Now, when you have escaped from the blighting shadow of the other man’s influence, you mean, Edith. But, whatever the reason, better late than not at all. You blame me for having, by a gift of £25,000, etc., ‘forced’ you into the marriage. Well, would you like to know why I did so?”
“Yes; I should very much.”
“Then I see no reason why I should not tell you—now. It was because you happen to be my daughter, Edith.”
She gasped again, then said: “Is that the truth, or one of your bad jokes?”
“The truth. I would rather not enter on the subject with you, but you can have your mother’s statement to read afterwards, if you like, and I don’t know that the fact need distress you.”
“It distresses me very much,” answered Edith bitterly. “Hitherto I always thought that my mother was honest, and that my father was a good if a foolish man. Now those illusions have gone, like the rest, and now, too, I understand where all that is bad in me came from, and that my odd dislike of Rupert was inherited—for I have heard that story from Dick.”
Even the hardened Lord Devene winced a little beneath these bitter shafts.
“It would seem, my dear Edith,” he said, “that your powers of offensive speech are at least your own, since mine, which some people think considerable, are put to the blush by them.”
“I pay you back in your own coin, that is all. For an hour you have sat there mocking and insulting me, tearing me to pieces and stamping on me, ending up with the information that I am—what I am. Do you wonder, then, that I retaliate? Cousin—I beg your pardon, but how do you wish me to address you in future? Well,” she went on, without waiting for an answer, “I am glad that Rupert knew nothing about it, for at any rate, as I think you once said, he was the only respectable man in the family, and he might have felt aggrieved under all the circumstances.”
“It is highly probable that he did. Do you remember a letter which the footman gave to him at the train when he was starting for Egypt after your marriage? Yes? Well, that letter informed him of our exact relationship, leaving it optional with him to pass on the facts to you, or not, as he liked.”