"Must I construe your silence as incredulity, sir? If so, I will instantly leave your house, nevermore to enter it. But before taking what to me will be a fatal step, I must observe that I had never believed that a perfect French gentleman like you, M. Belmont, would doubt the faith of a British officer like me, and my distress will be intensified by the reflection that your daughter, who formerly favored me with her esteem, will hereafter see in me only the brand of dishonor stamped upon my character by her own father. For her sake I will say no more, but take my departure at once."
At these words there were heard the rustling of a dress and suppressed sobs outside the parlor door. Both the men noticed the sounds and instinctively looked at each other. The eyes of Hardinge were suffused with tears, while those of M. Belmont mellowed with an expression of solemn pity.
"Stay, Lieutenant," he said in a low voice. "It strikes me all at once that my silence may possibly be unjust. If I thought your statement embraced all the circumstances of the case, I should not hesitate to accept it, but I fear that you do not know how far my grievances extend."
"I am certain that I know all," said Hardinge in a significant tone, which was not lost upon his interlocutor, who immediately subjoined:
"This can be easily ascertained if you will answer me a few questions. You called upon Lieutenant-Governor Cramahé early on the morning of the seventh?"
"I did so."
"You delivered to him a parcel of letters purporting to have come from Colonel Arnold, the commander of the Bastonnais?"
"Yes, sir."
"Some of those letters were addressed to citizens of Quebec?"
"They were."