“I am ashamed to confess it; but perhaps you have suspected—I feared—nay, believed—that you, out of sympathy with Camille, had hidden Little Sweetheart away from me.”
Yes, she had suspected—had guessed his thought—had grieved in silence over his proud coldness to her, his mother. She could not answer now save by a low, pained sob.
Still on his knees before the gentle mother he had wronged, he turned his face toward Camille.
“I was base enough to confide my suspicions to you,” he said, bitterly. “You, Camille, fostered and encouraged them. To save yourself you turned traitor to her who was your mother’s dearest friend, and who for that at least should have been sacred from your treachery. What have you to say for yourself?”
“That I am no worse than you. You first suggested it to me. It—it seemed plausible!” Camille replied, with a defiant face.
A low groan broke from him, and he gazed at her for a moment in steady scorn; then he turned back to the agitated elderly woman.
“Mother, I wronged you,” he said again, in a voice of deep contrition. “Can you forgive me?”
“Freely, Norman,” she replied, tenderly.
“If this was all you wanted, it might have waited until to-morrow. Unlock that door; I am going,” Camille said, sharply, eager to escape, for she began to fear that his suspicions were now directed against herself.
He did not obey her haughty command, but rising, stood looking at her, his arms folded over his breast, a gleam of fierce anger in his eyes.