“You are aware that, before I became engaged to you, I had had a previous—affair.”
“With the boy who committed a murder,” put in Mr. Plowden.
“With a gentleman who had the misfortune to kill a man in a duel,” explained Eva.
“The Church and the law call it murder.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Plowden, we are dealing neither with the Church nor the law; we are dealing with the thing as it is called among gentlemen and ladies.”
“Go on,” said Mr. Plowden.
“Well, misunderstandings, which I need not now enter into, arose with reference to that affair, though, as I told you, I loved the man. To-day I have heard from him, and his letter puts everything straight in my mind, and I see how wrong and unjust has been my behaviour to him, and I know that I love him more than ever.”
“Curse the fellow’s impudence!” said the clergyman, furiously; “if he were here, I would give him a bit of my mind!”
Eva’s spirit rose, and she turned on him with flashing eyes, looking like a queen in her imperial beauty.
“If he were here, Mr. Plowden, you would not dare to look him in the face. Men like you only take advantage of the absent.”