Her words aroused within me a distinct suspicion that her strange illness had been brought to pass because, using some mysterious means, she had made an attempt against her own life. I believed that she had suffered, and was still suffering, from the effects of some poison, the exact nature of which neither Deane nor Trépard could as yet determine.
“I do not seek to torture you, dearest,” I protested. “Far from it. I merely want to know the truth, in order that I may share your unhappiness, as your betrothed ought to do.”
“But you are not my betrothed.”
“I was once.”
“But not now. You taunt me with breaking that promise which I made three years ago, yet you yourself it was who played me false—who left me for your prim, strait-laced English miss!”
In an instant the truth was plain. She was aware that I had transferred my affections to Edith! Someone had told her—no doubt with a good many embellishments, or perhaps some scandalous story. In the salons through which we of the diplomatic circle are compelled to move, women’s tongues are ever at work match-making and mischief-making. On the Continent love and politics run always hand-in-hand. That is the reason why the most notorious of the demi-monde in Paris, in Vienna, and in Berlin are the secret agents of their respective Governments; and many are the honest men innocently denounced through jealousy and kindred causes. A false declaration of one or other of these unscrupulous spies has before now caused the downfall of a Ministry or the disgrace of a noble and patriotic politician.
“I know to whom you refer,” I said, with bowed head, after a moment’s pause. “It is currently reported that I love her. I have loved her. I do not seek to deny it. When a man sustains such a blow as I sustained before we parted, he often rushes to another woman for consolation. The influence of that second woman often prevents him from going to the bad altogether. It has been so in my case.”
“And you love her now?” she cried, the fire of fierce jealousy in her eyes. “You cannot deny it!”
“I do deny it,” I cried. “True, until yesterday I held her in esteem, even in affection; but it is not so now. All my love for you, Yolande, has returned to me. Our parting has rendered you dearer and sweeter to me than ever.”
“I cannot believe it,” she exclaimed falteringly.