“And that he had promised her—marriage—that he was engaged to her, as good as—as good as married to her—when he had the cruelty—oh, my dear child, my dear child!—to come to you.”
Aubrey took his hand away from his white face. “That,” he said, in a strange, dead, tuneless voice, “is not true.”
“Oh, more shame to you, Aubrey, more shame to you,” cried Mrs. Kingsward, forgetting her judicial character in her indignation as a woman, “if it is not true!—” She paused a moment to draw her breath, then added, “But indeed you were not so wicked as you say, for it is true. And here is the evidence. Oh!” she cried, with tears in her eyes, “it makes your conduct to my child worse; but it shows that you were not then, not then, as bad as you say.”
Bee had dropped into the chair that was next to her, and there sat, for her limbs had so trembled that she could not stand, watching him, never taking her eyes from him, as if he were a book in which the interpretation of this mystery was——
“Never mind about me,” he said, hoarsely. “I say nothing for myself. Allow me to be as bad as a man can be, but that is not true. And what is the evidence? You never told me there was any evidence.”
“Sir,” said Mrs. Kingsward, fully roused, “I told you all that was in my husband’s letter last night.”
“Yes—that she,” a sort of shudder seemed to run over him, to the keen sight of the watchers—“that she—said so. You don’t know, as I do, that that is no evidence. But you speak now as if there was something more.”
She took a piece of folded paper from her lap. “There is this,” she said, “a letter you wrote to her the morning you went away.”
“I did write her a letter,” he said.
Mrs. Kingsward held it out to him, but was stopped by Charlie, who put his hand on her arm. “Keep this document, mother. Don’t put the evidence against him into a man’s power. I’ll read it if Mr. Leigh thinks proper.”