There was a long silence. Ann swallowed once or twice, trying to relieve the dreadful feeling of tightness in her throat.
“I suppose,” she said at last, speaking with difficulty, “I suppose you told Eliot—on purpose—to separate us?”
She was staring at him with incredulous, horror-stricken eyes. This thing which he had done seemed to her unspeakable—treacherous and contemptible beyond all description. She had the same dazed appearance as some one who has just witnessed a terrible catastrophe—so terrible and unlooked-for as to be almost beyond credence. For an instant her stricken expression and slow, painful utterance brought the faintest possible look of shame to Brett’s face. But it was only momentary and passed as swiftly as it had come.
“Well,” he confessed, “I didn’t want you to marry Coventry, so I tried to stop it—naturally. As I told you—I want you to marry me.”
“And you could still want to marry me—thinking what you thought?”
“Certainly I could”—promptly. “Don’t you remember, I’ve told you more than once that the past doesn’t count—that nothing a woman might have done would matter to me if I wanted her? I thought you would understand.”
“Understand?” Ann laughed mirthlessly. “How should I understand? Tony and I were trapped up there—at the Dents de Loup. It was a pure accident. Hasn’t Lady Susan told you? Oh!”—with a quick, tortured movement. “What have I ever done that you could think of me like that?”
“I know—” Once again a fleeting look of shame clouded the blue eyes. “It seems mad—now. Now that it’s all explained. But any man might have thought the same. And do me this justice—I loved you well enough to forgive you that, or anything else.”
“You loved me!” The contempt in her voice was like a lash across the face. “You to speak of love! Why, you don’t know the first meaning of it! No man who loved me would have deliberately set out to destroy my happiness. Did you imagine for one moment that I would marry you after what you’ve done? Never! Even if I absolutely hated Eliot I wouldn’t marry you. Oh!”—smiting her hands together—“I couldn’t have believed that any man—even you!”—with blazing scorn—“could have been so wicked—so utterly devoid of anything decent or honest or straight. Have you no feeling, Brett—no mercy, or charity, that you could do such a thing?”
“I’ve the kind of charity that begins at home,” he returned, unabashed. “All’s fair in love and war, you know.”