“If that other person,” she began, “means Mr. Herbert Linley—”
Sydney interrupted her, in words which she was entirely unprepared to hear.
“I shall never see Mr. Herbert Linley again.”
“Has he deserted you?”
“No. It is I who have left him.”
“You!”
The emphasis laid on that one word forced Sydney to assert herself for the first time.
“If I had not left him of my own free will,” she said, “what else would excuse me for venturing to come here?”
Catherine’s sense of justice felt the force of that reply. At the same time her sense of injury set its own construction on Sydney’s motive. “Has his cruelty driven you away from him?” she asked.
“If he has been cruel to me,” Sydney answered, “do you think I should have come here to complain of it to You? Do me the justice to believe that I am not capable of such self-degradation as that. I have nothing to complain of.”