“Never!” she gasped, clasping her breast with her hands as if to stay the wild beating of her heart, and struggling unevenly to her feet. “Why never?”
“Because you have deceived me.”
“Yes, yes!” she wailed. “I admit it, I admit it all, but I swear my actions were imperative. Ah! alas that you cannot know everything, or you would kiss me as fondly as you used to do. You, Geoffrey, would love me with a love even more tender and passionate than before, if only you were aware of what I have suffered for your sake.”
I turned from her in disgust. Her tragic attitude filled me with loathing and contempt, for I knew she was lying.
“Can you never again trust me?” she asked, in a low, hoarse voice. “Will you never forgive?”
“I can have no further confidence in a woman who has practised such artful deception as you have,” I answered, turning again towards her, and noticing the look of unutterable sadness in her tearful eyes.
“Deception!” she cried, starting. “What do you mean? What have I done?”
“You acknowledge having deceived me wilfully with all the deep cunning of an adventuress, yet you refuse me one word of explanation, either in regard to Beck or Dudley?”
“There is nothing to explain, as far as Mr Beck is concerned,” she answered demurely. “He is an old friend, and your suspicions that there was any love between us are absolutely absurd.”
“Why, then, did you confess in your letter that you were unworthy of my love!” I demanded with warmth, walking towards her.