There was a silence. Then I heard Ellen say, quietly and firmly—
“Will you answer me a question?”
“Certainly.”
“Did you meet Miss Dove alone, last Thursday?”
I felt that her eyes were fixed upon his face as she put the question, and I guessed how it startled and amazed him; but he was unabashed, and replied instantly—
“Where?”
She waited a moment, like one pausing to give the coup de grâce, before she said—“Close to the river-side, among Lord ———s plantations.”
Greatly to my astonishment, for I naturally expected a denial, the answer came at once, in a clear, decided voice. “Yes, I did meet her.”
I could imagine, though I could not see, my wife’s start of virtuous indignation. Almost instantly, I saw her image in the mirror before me, as she rapidly crossed the room beyond; then he followed, black-suited, like the devil. In the dim distance of the mirror, I now saw their two figures reflected, floating faintly in the rose-coloured light beyond the curtains. Their backs were turned to me, their faces were looking out upon the terrace.
“I have nothing to conceal,” he continued passionately. “Some enemy has been spying upon me; but I repeat, I have nothing to conceal. Only, I wished to spare Miss Dove. Now that you have made reserve impossible, I will admit, frankly, that she has misconstrued certain harmless attentions, and that, on the day you mention, she came upon me by accident, and reproached me for my coldness, my want of sympathy. She even went further, and asked me to marry her. I tell you this in sacred confidence, for I have no right to inform others of the young lady’s indiscretion.”