'Gone to take off her wraps,' replied Chute.
'Quick!' said Jerry, in an agitated voice; 'come this way.'
'What is the matter?'
'You shall see. The honour—oh, that I should speak of it!—the honour of Ida is dearer to me than life,' said Vane, in a voice which indicated great mental pain; 'yet what am I to think, unless her brain is turned?'
He leaned for a moment against a console table, as if a giddiness or a weakness had come over him.
'Jerry, are you unwell?' asked Chute, anxiously.
'I don't know what the devil is up, or whether Ida—with her face lovely as it is, and pure as that of a saint in some old cathedral window—is playing false to me and to us all!'
'False!' exclaimed Chute, astonished by this outburst, which was made with great bitterness.
'Yes, false.'
'Ida—why—how?'