“Where had you been—with whom?” he repeated, while her lips moved mutely, quivering as in abject fear. “Great God! why can’t you answer? Why do you look such a miserable, degraded creature—self-convicted—not able to speak one word in your own defence?”
“On the last day of the year?” she faltered, with those tremulous lips.
“On the last day of the year before last—the winter I spent in Burmah. What were you doing—where were you—where had you been? Is it so difficult to remember?”
“No, no; of course not,” she cried, with a half-hysterical laugh. “You frighten me out of my senses, Martin. I don’t know what you are aiming at. I was coming home from London on that day—of course—the 31st of Jan—no, December. Coming home from Hans Place, where I had been spending a few days with Gwendolen.”
“You never told me of that visit to Gwendolen.”
“Oh yes; I’m sure I told you all about it in one of my letters. Perhaps you did not get that letter—I remember you never noticed it in yours. Martin, for God’s sake, don’t look at me like that!”
“I am looking at you to see if you are the woman I have loved and believed in, or if you are as false as hell,” he said, with his strong hand grasping her shoulder, her face turned to his, so that those frightened eyes of hers could not escape his scrutiny.
“Who has put this nonsense in your head?”
“Your neighbour—your good Mrs. Crowther’s husband—told me that his lawyer travelled with you from Paddington—on the 31st of December—the year before last. He got into conversation with you—you remember, perhaps?”