"Michael? Well . . what was it?" Anxiety sharpened his tone.
"He said that if . . if you really . . wanted me back again, your conscientious scruples would be swept away like straws before a flood. I wouldn't believe him then. But now . . I'm afraid it's true."
"Confound the man! What does he know about my scruples?" Lenox broke out with irrepressible vehemence; and she looked up quickly.
"Please don't be violent, Eldred. You told me to speak out. Besides,
Michael is my brother."
"I'm sorry. But if he were ten times your brother, I'd say the same. He had no business to try and set you against me like that." He caught her unresisting hands now, and held them fast.
"You take Michael's word against mine . . is that so?" he asked, a dull flush rising in his face; and he tried to look into her eyes. But she would not have it.
"Oh, my dear, can't you see it's not," she said, so low that he scarcely heard her. "It's . . your own actions, contradicting your own words, that make me feel he must be right."
Lenox stood aghast at this new and unanswerable aspect of the case; at the knowledge that, in respect of practical proof to the contrary, his hands were tied.
"Good God! what can a man do to convince you?" he demanded on a note of smothered passion. "Quita . . my very wife, look me in the eyes, and answer me straight. Do you honestly believe that I have been insulting you with mere lip-service all this while?"
He stood before her in mingled dignity and humility, trying to master himself, to find some admissible outlet for the tumult of feeling that was undermining the foundations of his will. But she did not answer at once; nor did she look up.