“And that caused you all this unhappiness? Well, now you know the truth,” he added gayly, “there need be no more fear on that score. We will return to England and be married as soon as possible. Are you agreeable?”
Replying in the affirmative, she raised her face to his and kissed him affectionately, almost sadly.
As she withdrew her lips her teeth were firmly set, for, after all, she thought, was she not participating in a base plot and acting in a vile, despicable character? Yet, notwithstanding, she had caught herself actually imbued with genuine affection for this man she was pretending to love. She, a butterfly of fashion, who had been the evil genius of more than one man who had fallen victim to her charms, actually struggled with her conscience.
Drawing a deep breath between her teeth, she hesitated. Hugh attributed it to agitation; he little suspected that it was an effort to remain firm and carry out a nefarious scheme.
He was weak and captivated by her pretty face, she knew; still, after all, she could not deny that she, too, loved him, and for the moment she hated herself for practising such vile deception.
Although a cunning, crafty woman, recognising no law, either of God or man, all sense of honour had not yet been quite obliterated by the many clever plots and base schemes in which she had participated. All her youthful enthusiasm came to life again; the heart which she had thought dead, beat as it had never before done at the voice and smile of this strong, gentle, loyal-hearted man. Her love for him was silent but passionate; she adored him without telling herself that her right to love had long ago been forfeited.
Her beautiful oval face was calm and pale, faultless as that of an Italian Madonna, while her brilliant eyes received additional radiance from the lustre of her dark hair. She forgot her past; she felt as if she never had but one name upon her ruddy pouting lips—that of Hugh.
And he sat beside her, saying—
“I love you—I love you!”
On both sides it was a blind infatuation. Agony and torture she underwent as she put to herself the momentous question—Was she justified in accepting, when acceptance meant ruin? Was it just? Was it natural? Were the horrible passages of her life to haunt her, sleeping and waking, to madden her with their hideous vividness? Had her past deprived her of her right to live—of her right to love?