"I cannot believe it!" cried Kitty, "there must be some dreadful mistake."
"The law, Miss Thornton, will not call it a mistake. It will call it a crime. I have but to say the word, and Francis Eversleigh will be arrested, in due course, tried, and convicted."
Kitty stood and faced the man, her eyes full of indignation.
"Mr. Bennet," she said, "I have known Mr. Eversleigh for years, and I cannot credit what you say."
"It is quite natural for you to say so. I could hardly take the thing in myself at first, but there is not the slightest doubt of the truth of what I have told you. Francis Eversleigh is in my power, and I make no scruple in telling you so."
Bennet's air, Kitty acknowledged to herself, was not that of a man who spoke falsely, whatever else it was; she was afraid that he did in very deed speak the truth.
"You do not scruple to tell me this," she said; "why do you tell me about it at all?"
Bennet looked at the beautiful girl, and her beauty maddened him.
"It is because I love you," he said boldly.
"Because you love me! You take a strange way of showing your love. What do you mean?"