She tried to take her hand from his, but he held it firmly and drew her into the room; as he did so, Julia, who had risen on his entrance, went quietly out at the other door. Maude and Harcourt were alone. “What can you have to say to me?” asked Mrs. Tredethlyn. “It is cruel of you to force yourself upon me at such a time as this. I have grief enough and trouble enough without being tortured by the sight of you.” Harcourt Lowther looked at her aghast. “Tortured by the sight of me!” he repeated. “Yes,” answered Maude, indignantly. “It was your fault that my husband left me. It was you who planted base suspicions in my mind when there was no need for suspicion. If I had gone back to the cottage at Petersham--as I would have done, but for you--I should have discovered the folly of my jealous fancies--inspired by you--yes, by you alone. For when I saw Francis and his cousin, my first impulse was to call him by his name. It was your exclamation that frightened me; it was your manner that filled me with absurd alarm. Why did you poison my mind against the best husband a woman ever had? How could you be so base as to repay his trusting friendship with such malicious treachery?” “Because I loved you, Mrs. Tredethlyn, and I believed that your husband had wronged you. Was _I_ likely to be a very lenient judge of his conduct towards you, when I had loved you so passionately, and had been jilted by you so cruelly for him? You questioned me, and I spoke. Can you forget or deny that I spoke reluctantly? You hang your head, Mrs. Tredethlyn; ah, I see that you remember.” “Yes,” answered Maude, piteously, as she sank into a chair; “you are right. I made you speak. It was my own jealous folly from first to last. If others doubted and suspected, I ought to have trusted him. What a pitiful return I made him for so much devotion, when I could not even give him my confidence!” She was silent for some moments, lost in thought. It was of her husband, and not of the man standing before her, that she was thinking. Harcourt Lowther could see that. She looked up at him presently, as if she suddenly remembered his presence. “Have you anything more to say to me?” she asked, coldly. “Have I anything more to say! Are you mad, Mrs. Tredethlyn, that you ask me such a question? I have outraged propriety perhaps in coming to see you so soon, you will tell me; but a man who has suffered as much as I have at the hands of the woman he loves is not very likely to be held back by ceremonial constraints when the hour comes in which he may claim atonement for the wrong that has been done him. I respect your natural sorrow for the terrible fate of your husband; but I should despise you if you were so false-hearted a prude as to affect forgetfulness of what is due to me.”