“How dare you accuse me?”
But she answered undauntedly:
“Do you think I did not guess the truth—that you made a mistake, and wreaked your fury on Royall Sherwood instead of Dallas Bain, of whom you were mistakenly jealous? Remember, you had threatened me you would kill him.”
He made no answer, and the sorrowful droop of his dark head attested his remorse and repentance.
She continued bitterly:
“What I wish to ask you is, why did you thrust yourself into this home, whose inmates would shrink from you in loathing did they guess the fatal truth? Was it to spy upon my actions? How dare you, when you are nothing to me—nothing but an abhorred memory I would fain banish!”
“I did not know you were here, Annette, or I should never have presumed to enter the house, believe me,” he murmured, low and deprecatingly, his very soul reeling before her wrath and scorn.
Had she ever dreamed of seeing that dark head, once so proud and erect, bowed so low with shame and sorrow and repentance? It touched her even in her anger, and she said, a shade more gently:
“Then why are you here at all? Can it be a pleasure to you to look on the suffering you have caused?”
“A pleasure! Oh, God!” and his husky voice almost broke as he continued: “Let me speak; let me tell you my real motive, and then you will see that I am not quite a fiend!”