“If you must know,” he told her, “it was for revenge.”
“Not to harm Captain Monmouth?” she cried paling.
“I came on your account,” he said quietly. “You don’t remember me?”
She shook her head. “When did we meet? In Europe?”
“No less a place than Fifth avenue.”
“Ah, at some social function? One meets so many that one has no time for recalling names or even faces.”
“Later I saw you at a police court. You were an indignant young English-woman accused of robbing Mr. Guestwick or trying to. You may recall a man who opened the Guestwick safe for you, a man upon whose good nature you imposed.” He looked very somber and stern. She shrank back, and covered her face with her white hands.
“I knew happiness was not for me,” she said brokenly. “I said, when I found the man I loved was the man who loved me. ‘It is too wonderful, too beautiful. It is not for me. I am born under an unlucky star.’ And you see I was right.”
Trent considered her for a moment. Here was no acting. Here was a woman whose soul was in agony.
“You forget,” he said, “that I don’t know what you mean.”