"It is too obvious to doubt——" Her throat was dry with the fierceness of her emotions and she choked a moment.
"Who told you?"
"I was there."
"Where?"
"In my bed-room. I had not gone out. I heard the maid tell you I was out motoring. I meant to speak to you—but you have been so—so unfriendly lately.... And then that woman came in!" ... Her grey eyes fairly blazed.
"Why do you do this to me?" she cried, clenching both hands. "It is wicked!—unthinkable! Why do you hold me in such contempt?"
Her fierce anger silenced him, and his silence lashed her until she lost her head.
"Do you think you can offer me such an affront in my own studio because I am really not your sister?—because your name is Cleland and mine is not?—because I was only the wretched, starved, maltreated child of drunken parents when your father picked me out of the gutter! Is that why you feel at liberty to affront me under my own roof—show your contempt for me? Is it?"
"Steve, you are mad!" he said. He had turned very white.
"No," she said, "but I'm at the limit of endurance. I can't stand it any longer. I shall go to-night to the man I married and live with him and find a shelter there—find protection and—f-forgetfulness——" Her voice broke but her eyes were the more brilliant and dangerous for the flashing tears: