“I have not.”
“You were not making love to her there, then, when I came up behind you? When you were so excited that you didn’t hear me? when you were moving toward her—trembling all over? I felt your arm!”
Pete’s eyes dropped, then lifted as though under a great weight.
“And you say you’re not a liar!”
“I am a liar, though not in the way you mean. We are all liars. We have caught that little blind girl in a trap. We have lied to her, all three of us—Bella and I, and you, Hugh—you have lied most of all.”
“She loves me,” Hugh panted. “She knows me. She understands me.”
“Yes,” Pete answered, trembling. “I’ve seen that. I’ve kept quiet. Bella and I have given you your happiness. Now you thank me by striking me and calling me a liar and a cheat!”
Hugh, even in the midst of his bitter and suspicious rage, felt the justice of the reproach. He paused, looked about, then came close, put a hand on each of his brother’s shoulders, searching the white, young face with his wild eyes.
“I must have Sylvie,” he groaned. “Pete, I must. You don’t know; you can’t know—” He dropped his grizzled head against Pete’s neck, and his breath caught. “You don’t know what I felt when I saw you there, when I thought—Tell me the truth, Pete. You are not going to take my love, my only joy, my one prize away from me?”
After a long and difficult silence Pete put his arm half mechanically across the twisted, gasping back.