“Because!” I said, with emphasis, “because I have myself followed you this evening. Surely Kensington Gardens is not the spot where a wife should take recreation, unless clandestinely, as you have done! No, this is not the first occasion you have lied to me, Ella; but it shall be the last.”
“The last!” she gasped, glancing up at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I can have no further confidence in you, and that we are better apart.”
“You don’t intend to leave me. Surely you would never be so cruel, Geoffrey. It would kill me.”
“I have loved you, Ella,” I said hoarsely, after a pause, brief and full of suspense. “No man could have loved a woman with a passion more tender than I have done, but now that I have discovered how basely I have been deceived, my affection has turned to hatred.”
“You hate me!” she wailed. “Ah, no, you cannot—you shall not,” she cried, as, rushing towards me, she threw both arms around my neck, and, notwithstanding my efforts to avert her, pressed her tear-stained face to mine.
Roughly I unclasped her arms and cast her from me, saying,—
“I have resolved. Nothing will cause me to reconsider my decision. We must part.”
“It is not like you, Geoffrey, to be cruel to a woman,” she said reproachfully, standing before me. “I admit I have acted foolishly, but that man you saw was not my lover. I care for no one except your own dear self.”
“Terms of endearment are unnecessary,” I answered impatiently, turning from her. “Such expressions from one who has so grossly deceived me are absolutely nauseating. I have striven for your social advancement and have loved you dearly, but from this moment you are my wife only in name.”