"And what if I did?" he retorted roughly, but still making a ghastly attempt at badinage. "All's fair in love and war, you know, my dear; and it was that aunt of yours who told the lie, as you elegantly term it--if it was a lie--not I; I merely did not contradict her." She looked at him steadily, with that implacable hardness in her once soft eyes. "I will never forgive you," she said; "I will never, never forgive you." "I am sure I am very sorry to hear it; but I suppose I can manage to get on without your forgiveness," he began. And then he gave up trying to make a joke of it, and turned upon her savagely. "Have you been seeing that fellow, Rachel? Tell me this instant; I insist upon knowing." "I have seen his friend," she said, quietly. "And did he send his friend to make those explanations to you--to _you_?" "No; he did not send him. It was by accident that I met Mr. Gordon to-night!" "And what business had you to talk to Mr. Gordon--to talk to anybody--about your old love affairs? Do you forget that you are a married woman--that you are my wife? It was bad enough when you were single to be mixing yourself up with a disreputable scoundrel like that----" "He is not a disreputable scoundrel," she interposed sternly. "He is the most upright gentleman--he is the most noble man--in the wide world. I might have known," she added, drawing herself up proudly, "that he would never have forsaken me! I might have been sure that he would never break his word; that whoever was to blame for what happened to me that time, _he_ was not! But I let myself be twisted round anybody's fingers rather than trust in him. It serves me right, it serves me right! I was not worthy of him." "Well--upon my word!" "You need not look at me so, Graham. I have never deceived _you_. I told you before I married you exactly how it was with me. I have never had any secrets from you, and I never will have any. You _know_ as well as I do that I loved him--ah! I did not love him enough, that is what has ruined us!--and so I shall while I live, if I live to be a hundred." "You mean to say you can sit there and tell me that to my face?" "I can only tell the truth," she replied, with the same hard deliberation. "I could no more help loving him, especially now I understand how things have been with us--no one will know it, but it will be in my heart--than I could help breathing. When I leave off breathing, then I shall forget him perhaps, not before." Mr. Kingston was beside himself with passion--as, indeed, so was she. "Forewarned is forearmed," he said, with a sort of sardonic snarl; "I shall know now what steps to take to protect my honour." "You know perfectly well that your honour--what _you_ call your honour--is safe," she replied proudly. "If I am not to be trusted, _he_ is. Do not insult us any more. We have had enough cruelty; we shall have quite enough to bear--he and I."