“No.” She stared at him in wonder, then laughed unnaturally. “She went with Cullen, of course?”
“No, Cullen is here.”
There was an awful silence for a few moments. She broke it with a scornful laugh, asking coldly:
“Do you wish me to believe that—that—my noble, handsome lover, Dallas—went off with Mrs. Fleming’s servant, that pert little Letty?”
“That is what the jealous Cullen is saying. I don’t ask you to believe it, but he seems to be sure of his facts.”
He saw the golden head droop, and the face fall into the hands, and he guessed the awful humiliation that made her hide it from his gaze.
“My poor child, you don’t know how it pained me to come to you with this horrible story to shake your faith in your lover; but it could not be withheld, you know,” he said.
She lifted her face, and it was like a death mask, so cold, so stony, the light and beauty all stricken from it at a blow.
“I am not blaming you,” she said, in a cold voice that matched her face. “But—will you bring that man here to me?”
He went out, and she was alone—alone with a sorrow more bitter than death.