‘I had never thought of it,’ he said.
‘And don’t believe it?’
‘Not unless there was some other evidence to support the view.’
She paused a minute and then began hesitatingly—
‘My intention was—what I did not dream of owning to you—my intention was to try to induce you to fulfil your promise to Miss Hinton not solely on her account and yours (though partly). I love Cytherea Graye with all my soul, and I want to see her happy even more than I do you. I did not mean to drag her name into the affair at all, but I am driven to say that she wrote that letter of dismissal to you—for it was a most pronounced dismissal—not on account of your engagement. She is old enough to know that engagements can be broken as easily as they can be made. She wrote it because she loved another man; very suddenly, and not with any idea or hope of marrying him, but none the less deeply.’
‘Who?’
‘Mr. Manston.’
‘Good—! I can’t listen to you for an instant, madam; why, she hadn’t seen him!’
‘She had; he came here the day before she wrote to you; and I could prove to you, if it were worth while, that on that day she went voluntarily to his house, though not artfully or blamably; stayed for two hours playing and singing; that no sooner did she leave him than she went straight home, and wrote the letter saying she should not see you again, entirely because she had seen him and fallen desperately in love with him—a perfectly natural thing for a young girl to do, considering that he’s the handsomest man in the county. Why else should she not have written to you before?’
‘Because I was such a—because she did not know of the connection between me and my cousin until then.’