“And I that I had never given them.”
“Wretch!”
“Oh! you’re very good at calling names—ugly ones, too.”
“I’ll call you an uglier still, coward!”
This stung him. Perhaps the only epithet that would; for he not only felt that it was true, but that his wife knew it.
“What do you mean?” he asked, turning suddenly red.
“What I say; that you’re a coward—you know you are. You can safely insult a woman; but when a man stands up you daren’t—no, you daren’t say boo to a goose. Remember Maynard?”
It was the first time the taunt had been openly pronounced; though on more than one occasion since the scenes in Newport, she had thrown out hints of a knowledge of that scheme by which he had avoided meeting the man named. He supposed she had only suspicions, and could know nothing of that letter delivered too late. He had taken great pains to conceal the circumstances. From what she now said, it was evident she knew all.
And she did; for James, the waiter, and other servants, had imparted to her the gossip of the hotel; and this, joined to her own observation of what had transpired, gave the whole story. The suspicion that she knew it had troubled Swinton—the certainty maddened him.
“Say that again!” he cried, springing to his feet; “say it again, and by G—, I’ll smash in your skull?”