Floriot rose and lurched a step or two away. Noel could see less than his profile and barely caught the words, but they were enough to leave him momentarily tongue-tied and paralyzed with amazement.
"She left me—two years ago—with her lover!"
Noel stared at him, dumb with amazement, and stammered something incoherently, of which Floriot could catch only the words, "little Jennie Wren!" in tones of pity. He wheeled on him.
"You pity her!"
Noel raised his eyebrows and looked calmly at his friend.
"Is she not to be pitied most?" he asked gently.
"Do you think so?" cried Floriot bitterly. "Then, what of me who adored her—and whose life she wrecked? I am an old man at thirty-five You told me so, yourself! Now, you know why!"
The other half raised his hand and murmured something sympathetic.
"You can never imagine what these last two years have been to me!" Floriot's voice was hoarse with anguish. "I have been tom with jealousy and dreams of vengeance and tortured almost beyond endurance by the memory of the happiness I have lost!" He dropped, shuddering, into a chair, his handkerchief pressed to his face. Noel gazed at him in pitying silence for several minutes. Then he spoke as gently as before.
"And yet, she was not wicked," he said, and Floriot writhed. "She was only frivolous and wanted luxury and pleasure. Life was too serious a problem for her. And you never suspected anything?"