“When you were with Hewby, of course, of course. Well, I can’t understand it.” His tones rose. “I don’t know what to say, your hoodwinking me like this for so long!”
“I don’t see that I have hoodwinked you at all.”
“Yes, yes, but”——
Knight arose from his seat, and began pacing up and down the room. His face was markedly pale, and his voice perturbed, as he said—
“You did not act as I should have acted towards you under those circumstances. I feel it deeply; and I tell you plainly, I shall never forget it!”
“What?”
“Your behaviour at that meeting in the family vault, when I told you we were going to be married. Deception, dishonesty, everywhere; all the world’s of a piece!”
Stephen did not much like this misconstruction of his motives, even though it was but the hasty conclusion of a friend disturbed by emotion.
“I could do no otherwise than I did, with due regard to her,” he said stiffly.
“Indeed!” said Knight, in the bitterest tone of reproach. “Nor could you with due regard to her have married her, I suppose! I have hoped—longed—that HE, who turns out to be YOU, would ultimately have done that.”