"I need you?" I repeated with a cool laugh. "And except the good deed of providing me with a husband, what services do you propose to—"
"Nelly," he said, disregarding my taunts, "I have just come from the Orinoco. When I reached the office this morning and heard that the party was starting, I assumed that you would be with it and hurried to the pier. If I'd missed the boat, I might not have learned the truth until—when? Why have they gone without you? What does it all mean?"
I pulled a flower nonchalantly from a vase beside me, but I felt my cheeks burn and grow white with deadly cold and fever.
"Didn't Mrs. Baker tell you," I said, "that 'Nelly dear' thought Bermuda unfashionable? You got my letter?"
"No; you did write, then? You so far recognised the claim of your promised husband—"
"Not now; not one minute—"
In a blind frenzy of rage I held out his ring; but he knew the master word to my heart. I stopped short as, ignoring what I said, he hurried on.
"Why wasn't Hynes at the boat?" he demanded. "Did he know what I didn't—that it was not the place to seek you?"
He grasped my wrists, he looked into my bloodless face—caught the defiant, exultant look that flashed upon it at the news he gave; then he dropped my hands but immediately seized them again.
"If he dares come near you, he shall answer! Speak!" he said. "Is it for his sake that you've stayed here?"