Jay Gardiner's face turns livid, and in a voice which he in vain tries to make steady, he says:
"How long have you thought so?"
"Since yesterday," she answered, her eyes still fixed on the floor.
"Since yesterday"—Jay Gardiner is almost choking with anger as he repeats her words—"since you, another man's wife, took that midnight ride which this letter refers to?"
The sarcasm which pervades the last words makes her flush to the roots of her yellow hair.
"But that I am too much amused, I should be tempted to be angry with you for believing a story from such a ridiculous source," she declared, raising her face defiantly to his.
"Then you deny it?" he cried, grasping her white arm. "You say there is no truth in the report?"
"Not one word," she answered. "I left the ball-room early, because it was lonely for me there without you, and came directly to my room. Antoinette could have told you that had you taken the pains to inquire of her."
"It would ill become me to make such an inquiry of a servant in my employ," he replied. "You are the one to answer me."
"If the ridiculous story had been true, you could not have wondered at it much," she declared, with a hard glitter in her eye, and a still harder laugh on her red lips. "When a man neglects his wife, is it any wonder that she turns to some one else for amusement and—and comfort?"