“She has been very ill: that was what I was going to ask leave to tell you about.”
“I think I heard Florence speak about her. But I thought it was your sister. Her name is Evangeline, and some one said she was sometimes called Eva, and they said it troubled you to have it mentioned; so, even though you had told me about your sister, I scarcely liked to ask how she was.”
She put great control on herself to speak thus; but as she went on, Rex was relieved to see that she was rewarded for the effort by her calmness increasing. He had been dreading tears. Once let them begin, and he scarcely knew what could be done.
“I see,” he said; “but still, some day perhaps I may be able to tell you our melancholy little romance. We have been engaged five years, Miss Wentworth!” with a smile that was sad enough. “But who told you that Eva was my sister? Who warned you not to speak of her?” he added, with another flash of the strange, on the surface unreasonable, suspicion he had already felt more than once.
Imogen tried to collect her bewildered faculties.
“Trixie, I think,” she said; “and—and—I am not sure, but I think Miss Forsyth said something of the same to mamma.”
The lines on Major Winchester’s face hardened.
“They are both so likely to consider my feelings tenderly!” he said sarcastically.
“No,” said Imogen, bluntly, not detecting the satire. “I think they both almost hate you.”
The quiet, matter-of-fact tone in which she spoke startled him. “Hate,” uttered in cold blood, is an ugly word. But a new misgiving was now making its way to his mind, and for the moment, in his intense anxiety to save Imogen further suffering, he put aside the question of the present terrible complication being more than accident.