“Has that other man come between you and me? I speak plainly on my side. Speak plainly on yours.”
“I have spoken. I have nothing more to say.”
There was a pause. She saw the warning light which told of the fire within him, growing brighter and brighter in his eyes. She felt his grasp strengthening on her hand. He appealed to her for the last time.
“Reflect,” he said, “reflect before it is too late. Your silence will not serve you. If you persist in not answering me, I shall take your silence as a confession. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“Clara Burnham! I am not to be trifled with. Clara Burnham! I insist on the truth. Are you false to me?”
She resented that searching question with a woman’s keen sense of the insult that is implied in doubting her to her face.
“Mr. Wardour! you forget yourself when you call me to account in that way. I never encouraged you. I never gave you promise or pledge—”
He passionately interrupted her before she could say more.
“You have engaged yourself in my absence. Your words own it; your looks own it! You have engaged yourself to another man!”