"A jest? You think I'm likely to jest over it—a thing that threatens the life of the girl I love? In the name of heaven, Kathie, put an end to this nonsense. You know I did meet you there! You know how surprised I was when I got to the place to see you stealing out of the gates. Why, the very moment you saw me you spoke my name, and that I had no more than just time to say to you, 'For God's sake, Kathie, how did you come here?' when you plucked me by the sleeve and said, 'Come in, come in; I'll show you something that will light the way back to the land of happiness, dear!' And after all that to face me down like this—to pretend that you were not there. It is simply ridiculous."
"I am glad you can give it so mild a name," said the girl coldly. "To me it seems the cruellest and the wickedest falsehood a man could possibly utter. Dear God! what has come over you, Geoff? Are you mad, or are you something worse, to come here and make this abominable lying charge against me—against me? And when you know in your heart that there is not one word of truth in it!"
"Oh, for God's sake, don't treat me as if I were a fool, Katharine. Who is there to impersonate you, and for what reason? I know what I know, I know what I've seen, what I've heard, what I've been through! Then what in heaven's name is the use of keeping up this idle pretence with me?"
"It is not a pretence—it is the truth, the simple and the absolute truth!" she replied with heat. "If they were the last words I had to say in this world, I would repeat on the very threshold of the one to come: I was not at Gleer Cottage last night. I came straight from Clavering Close to Wuthering Grange, and I never left my room for one instant from that time until I came down to breakfast this morning. Ailsa Lorne was with me when I returned; she will tell you that I am speaking the truth."
Yes, decidedly Ailsa Lorne would tell him; that Cleek acknowledged to himself. Had she not done so already? But again she might also have told him that she thought she heard Lady Katharine's bedroom door open in the night and some one steal out of it. Besides, there was another thing—the golden capsule of the scent bracelet—to be reckoned with. Hum-m-m! Was there, then, a possibility that Geoff Clavering was speaking the truth, and that it was Lady Katharine herself who was lying? Of course, in that case—— Stop a bit—they were going at it again, and he could not afford to lose a single word.
"I don't care a hang what Ailsa Lorne or anybody else will say; I know what I know," young Clavering flung in doggedly. "You can't tell me that I didn't see a thing when I did see it—at least, you can't and expect to make me believe it. Give me credit for a little common sense."
"How can I when your own words so utterly refute it, when you convict yourself out of your own mouth, when even the dead man himself is a witness to the utter folly of this charge?"
"De Louvisan?"
"Yes. He speaks for me!"
"What nonsense!"