‘No--not now--I did not mean to speak--it is not right, Edward.’ She spoke hurriedly and turned away from him, beating the air with her hand. ‘Not one common word of explanation?’ he implored. ‘Don’t think I am bad enough to try to lead you astray. Well, go--it is better.’ Their eyes met again. She was nearly choked. O, how she longed--and dreaded--to hear his explanation! ‘What is it?’ she said desperately. ‘It is that I did not come to the church this morning in order to distress you: I did not, Cytherea. It was to try to speak to you before you were--married.’ He stepped closer, and went on, ‘You know what has taken place? Surely you do?--my cousin is married, and I am free.’ ‘Married--and not to you?’ Cytherea faltered, in a weak whisper. ‘Yes, she was married yesterday! A rich man had appeared, and she jilted me. She said she never would have jilted a stranger, but that by jilting me, she only exercised the right everybody has of snubbing their own relations. But that’s nothing now. I came to you to ask once more if.... But I was too late.’ ‘But, Edward, what’s that, what’s that!’ she cried, in an agony of reproach. ‘Why did you leave me to return to her? Why did you write me that cruel, cruel letter that nearly killed me!’ ‘Cytherea! Why, you had grown to love--like--Mr. Manston, and how could you be anything to me--or care for me? Surely I acted naturally?’ ‘O no--never! I loved you--only you--not him--always you!--till lately.... I try to love him now.’ ‘But that can’t be correct! Miss Aldclyffe told me that you wanted to hear no more of me--proved it to me!’ said Edward. ‘Never! she couldn’t.’ ‘She did, Cytherea. And she sent me a letter--a love-letter, you wrote to Mr. Manston.’ ‘A love-letter I wrote?’ ‘Yes, a love-letter--you could not meet him just then, you said you were sorry, but the emotion you had felt with him made you forgetful of realities.’ The strife of thought in the unhappy girl who listened to this distortion of her meaning could find no vent in words. And then there followed the slow revelation in return, bringing with it all the misery of an explanation which comes too late. The question whether Miss Aldclyffe were schemer or dupe was almost passed over by Cytherea, under the immediate oppressiveness of her despair in the sense that her position was irretrievable. Not so Springrove. He saw through all the cunning half-misrepresentations--worse than downright lies--which had just been sufficient to turn the scale both with him and with her; and from the bottom of his soul he cursed the woman and man who had brought all this agony upon him and his Love. But he could not add more misery to the future of the poor child by revealing too much. The whole scheme she should never know.