“Denzil, can you think that—that?” she asked. “Do you believe that I have come from his room? Oh, merciful Heaven! that is too much! Say that I have not read your thoughts aright!”
“Forgive, darling!” I whispered. “God help me, I knew not what I said! No, no, I will never believe that! Flora, my wife——”
“I am trying you cruelly,” she interrupted. “But I am innocent—my heart is all yours! Trust me, dearest, to the end. And now go—go! Think what it will mean to be found here together!”
With that she slipped by me, passed quickly to the end of the passage, and vanished from sight. I reeled like a drunken man into my room, closed the door noiselessly, and threw myself on the bed.
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE ALARM.
That sleepless night—I shudder as I recall it. For hours I tossed on the bed, rent by conflicting emotions, ashamed one minute of my ignoble thoughts, plunged the next into a black abyss of doubt. At the first flush of wintry dawn I dozed off into slumber; the sun was shining when I awoke, and the moonlight encounter seemed more a dream than a reality.
As I dressed I considered the matter as calmly as possible, and I made two resolves—that I would hold fast to my faith in Flora, and would patiently wait her own time for explaining the mystery. But the demon of mistrust still lurked within me; I was as miserable as only a jealous lover can be, and I dreaded unspeakably the ordeal of hiding my feelings through the day.