“Even I, mademoiselle, let me assure you. And there is more than that. This quarrel which M. Moreau has forced upon me is no new thing. It is merely the culmination of a long-drawn persecution...”
“Which you invited,” she cut in. “Be just, monsieur.”
“I hope that it is not in my nature to be otherwise, mademoiselle.”
“Consider, then, that you killed his friend.”
“I find in that nothing with which to reproach myself. My justification lay in the circumstances—the subsequent events in this distracted country surely confirm it.”
“And...” She faltered a little, and looked away from him for the first time. “And that you... that you... And what of Mademoiselle Binet, whom he was to have married?”
He stared at her for a moment in sheer surprise. “Was to have married?” he repeated incredulously, dismayed almost.
“You did not know that?”
“But how do you?”
“Did I not tell you that we are as brother and sister almost? I have his confidence. He told me, before... before you made it impossible.”