"Yes: worse luck. I ought to have spoken sooner. But I shirked it, especially after what you said out driving. You remember—that letter—long ago?"
"Am I likely to forget? What about it?"
This time he faced her deliberately, though the blood mounted to his forehead.
"I am the chap who wrote it. I'm the man you have been hating all these years; the man you hate still."
She came a step closer and stood gazing at him blankly, reorganising her sensations.
"You wrote it? You?"
"Yes; I."
"But did you really know anything about me, or about Sir Roger Bennet?"
"Nothing on earth. I was simply repeating idle gossip."
"Oh, how could you! And look what came of it. The years of bitterness and estrangement——!" He winced under her passionate reproach.