He bowed profoundly. ‘My dear Madeline, your penetration is wonderful. I perceive you are one of the few beings in this stupid world fully capable of understanding me.’
‘Unfortunately for myself,’ Madeline continued, ‘I understand you sufficiently to know that you would not plan this meeting if there was no purpose to be obtained by it. What new injury do you wish to do me now?’
He gazed at her flushed face and muttered, ‘Ma foi, but she is charming!’ Then he added, aloud—
‘I merely wished to tell you, Madeline, something that you do not know.’
‘And that is——’
‘Only this—that although you have married an honourable man, as you say, you are nevertheless still my wife.’
CHAPTER XXX.—IN THE TOILS.
He spoke quietly enough, but she recoiled as if he had struck her.