The girl was standing pale and erect, one hand grasping the back of a chair, the other held in her lover's clasp, while her father had risen, his expressionless face turned towards them, his hand groping until it touched a small table upon which stood an old punch-bowl full of sweet-smelling pot-pourri.
"Listen, dad," she said, heedless of Flockart's remark. "Hear me before you condemn me. I know that the charge made against me by this man is a terrible one. God alone knows what I have suffered these last two years, how I have prayed for deliverance from the hands of this man and his friends. It happened a few months before I left Amiens. Lady Heyburn, you'll recollect, rented a pretty flat in the Rue Léonce-Reynaud in Paris. She obtained permission for me to leave school and visit her for a few weeks."
"I recollect perfectly," remarked her father in a low voice.
"Well, there came many times to visit us an American girl named Bryant, who was studying art, and who lived somewhere off the Boulevard Michel, as well as a Frenchman named Felix Krail and an Englishman called Hamilton."
"Hamilton!" echoed Murie. "Was his name Edgar Hamilton—my friend?"
"Yes, the same," was her quiet reply. Then she turned to Murie, and said, "We all went about a great deal together, for it was summer-time, and we made many pleasant excursions in the district. Edna Bryant was a merry, cheerful girl, and I soon grew to be very friendly with her, until one day Lady Heyburn, when alone with me, repeated in strict confidence that the girl was secretly devoted to you, Walter."
"To me!" he cried. "True, I knew a Miss Bryant long ago, but for the past three years or so have entirely lost sight of her."
"Lady Heyburn told me that you were very fond of the girl, and this, I confess, aroused my intense jealousy. I believed that the girl I had trusted so implicitly was unprincipled and fickle, and that she was trying to secure the man whom I had loved ever since a child. I had to return to school, and from there I wrote to Lady Heyburn, who had gone to Dieppe, a letter saying hard things of the girl, and declaring that I would take secret revenge—that I would kill her rather than allow Walter to be taken from me. A month afterwards I again returned to Paris. That man standing there"—she indicated Flockart—"was living at the Hôtel Continental, and was a frequent visitor. He told me that it was well known in London that Walter admired Miss Bryant, a declaration that I admit drove me half-mad with jealousy."
"It was a lie!" declared Walter. "I never made love to the girl. I admired her, that's all."
"Well," laughed Flockart, "go on. Tell us your version of the affair."