“My own case!” she echoed. “No, Ralph. I have never believed you to be a perfect ideal. I have loved you because I knew that you loved me. Our tastes are in common, our admiration for each other is mutual, and our affection strong and ever-increasing—until—until——”
And faltering, she stopped abruptly, without concluding her sentence.
“Until what?” I asked.
Tears sprang to her eyes. One drop rolled down her white cheek until it reached her veil, and stood there sparkling beneath the light.
“You know well,” she said hoarsely. “Until the tragedy. From that moment, Ralph, you changed. You are not the same to me as formerly. I feel—I feel,” she confessed, covering her face with her hands and sobbing bitterly, “I feel that I have lost you.”
“Lost me! I don’t understand,” I said, feigning not to comprehend her.
“I feel as though you no longer hold me in esteem,” she faltered through her tears. “Something tells me, Ralph, that—that your love for me has vanished, never to return!”
With a sudden movement she raised her veil, and I saw how white and anxious was her fair countenance. I could not bring myself to believe that such a perfect face could conceal a heart blackened by the crime of murder. But, alas! all men are weak where a pretty woman is concerned. After all, it is feminine wiles and feminine graces that rule our world. Man is but a poor mortal at best, easily moved to sympathy by a woman’s tears, and as easily misled by the touch of a soft hand or a passionate caress upon the lips. Diplomacy is inborn in woman, and although every woman is not an adventuress, yet one and all are clever actresses when the game of love is being played.
The thought of that letter I had read and destroyed again recurred to me. Yes, she had concealed her secret—the secret of her attempt to marry Courtenay for his money. And yet if, as seemed so apparent, she had nursed her hatred, was it not but natural that she should assume a hostile attitude towards her sister—the woman who had eclipsed her in the old man’s affections? Nevertheless, on the contrary, she was always apologetic where Mary was concerned, and had always sought to conceal her shortcomings and domestic infelicity. It was that point which so sorely puzzled me.
“Why should my love for you become suddenly extinguished?” I asked, for want of something other to say.