"Well," I said; "loving you as intensely as I do, I can hardly bring myself to repeat her insinuations."
"But I demand to know them," she protested, standing erect and facing me. "I am attacked; therefore, I am within my right to know what charges the woman has brought against me."
"She has brought no direct charges," was my slow reply. "But she has suggested certain things—certain scandalous things."
"What are they?" she gasped, suddenly pale as death.
"First tell me the truth, Phrida," I cried, holding her in my arms and looking straight into those splendid eyes I admired so much. "Admit it—you knew Digby. He—he was a friend of yours?"
"A—a friend—" she gasped, half choking with emotion. "A—friend—yes."
"You knew him intimately. You visited him at his rooms unknown to me!" I went on fiercely.
"Ah!" she shrieked. "Don't torture me like this, Teddy, when I love you so deeply. You don't know—you can never know all I have suffered—and now this woman has sought to ruin and crush me!"
"Has she spoken the truth when she says that you visited Digby—at night—in secret!" I demanded, bitterly, between my teeth, still holding her, her white, hard-set face but a few inches from my own.
She drew a long, deep breath, and in her eyes was a strange half-fascinated look—a look that I had never seen in them before.