She hesitates. It may be emotion, it may be recollection and a thought that he may not wish further disclosures, check her. "Yes, and even since?" echoes Portia, bending eagerly forward. Some feeling even greater than the anguish of the moment compels her to ask the question. But it is never answered. Dulce, with quivering lips and flashing eyes, follows out her own train of thought. "I congratulate you upon your complete success as a coquette," she says. "No doubt, a London season can develop talents of that sort. You at least deserve praise as an apt pupil. Step by step, day by day, you led him on to his destruction--nay, I am not blind--until at last he laid his whole heart at your feet; you made him adore you only to--" "Dulce--Dulce," cries Portia, throwing out her arms in passionate protest. "It is not true, I--" "I _will_ speak," says Dulce, pressing her back from her, "I _will_ tell you what I think of you. Scorning him in your heart you still encouraged him, until his very soul was your own. Do you think I can't see how it is? Have you forgotten he is my own flesh and blood, and that I can read him as no one else can? He thinks you sweet and noble, and perfect, no doubt. Alas! how he has been deceived!" "Listen to me." "No, I will not listen. I have trusted you too far already. Oh!" piteously, "you who have seen him, and have noticed the beauty, the sweetness of his life, how could you have misjudged him? But," with vehement anger, "your narrow mind could not appreciate his! You lack generosity. You could not grasp the fact that there might be in this wide world such a thing as undiscovered wrong. You condemned without a hearing. Why," growing calmer, "there have been _hundreds_ of cases where the innocent have suffered for the guilty." "I know it," says Portia, feverishly, taking Dulce's hand and trying to draw her towards her; but the girl recoils. "Do not touch me," she says. "There is no longer any friendship between us." "Oh! Dulce, do not say that," entreats Portia, painfully. "I will say it. All is at an end as far as love between us is concerned. Fabian is part of me. I cannot separate myself from him. His friends are mine. His detractors are mine also. I will not forgive them. I believe him a saint, you believe him defiled, and tainted with the crime of _forgery_." She draws her breath quickly; and Portia turns even whiter than before. "Whereas I protest to you," goes on Dulce, rapidly losing all constraint, and letting her only half-suppressed passion have full sway. "I believe you to be less pure than him, less noble, less self-denying; _he_ would be slow to believe evil of anyone. And this one thing I am resolved on. He shall no longer be left in ignorance of your scorn; he shall not any more spend his affection upon one who regards him with disdain; he shall know the truth before the day dies." "Have you no pity?" says Portia, faintly. "Have you none? You condemned him willingly." "Oh! not willingly!"