“Yes, I brought some papers; but you will not require them.” She hesitated a moment, and then went on firmly, “I wish you to know, Alfred, that you are about to leave this house never to enter it again.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, and fastened his eyes on her with only a little more expression in them than usual.
“I mean that I know everything.”
“Have you seen my uncle?” he asked, betraying no surprise and not moving from the doorway.
“He is in Scotland for a fortnight—but I know everything. I know that you have insulted and defamed me.” She spoke in a low voice and so calmly that he looked at her as if he thought she did not understand the meaning of her own words. “Till I met you,” she went on, “I bore an unsullied name and reputation.”
“What have I done to your name and reputation?” he asked, and closed his lips as though he were almost stupefied with silence. But he went a step towards her, with a shrinking, defensive movement. She retreated towards the table on which the candle stood, a flickering witness of the scene between them—a scene full of shame and suffering and unconfessed fear for her, and of cruelty and loathing and bewilderment for him; but for both strangely destitute of fire and passion.
“You have ruined both,” she said. “You have dared to make a pretence of marriage with me, though you were married already to an inferior person whom you had known at your lodgings.”
“Who told you this?”
“I shall not tell you my informant, but I know everything. You will retire from my presence this evening and never enter it again.”
“It is not true,” he said shortly, and made another step towards her, and again she retreated.