"Guy Oleander, are you mad? What are you saying?"
"The truth, Blanche. It is too late for any other alternative now. Don't fear—Mr. Walraven will hardly allow his ward to prosecute his wife."
"Traitor and coward!" Blanche Walraven cried in fierce scorn. "I wish my tongue had blistered with the words that urged you on."
"I wish it had," returned the doctor, coolly. "I wish, as I often have wished since, that I had never listened to your tempting. It was your fault, not mine, from first to last."
It was the old story of Adam and Eve over again: "The woman tempted me, and I did eat."
"'When rogues fall out, honest men get their own.' You mean to say, Doctor Oleander, that Mrs. Walraven instigated you on?"
"How else should I know?" answered the doctor. "She overheard you telling the woman Miriam, in your chamber, the whole story. She saw and understood your advertisement and its answer. She concocted the whole scheme, even to advancing the hands of your watch half an hour. If the law punishes me, Miss Dane, it must also punish your guardian's wife."
"Coward! coward!" Blanche furiously cried. "Oh, basest of the base! If I only had the power to strike you dead at my feet!"
The doctor bore the onslaught quietly enough.
"Heroics are all very well, Blanche," he said; "but self-preservation is the first law of nature. Confession is the only avenue of escape, and I have taken it. Besides, justice is justice. You deserve it. You goaded me on. It was your fault from beginning to end."