“I don’t know,” he said under his mustache, never moving a step toward her, his hands, that were wont to clasp hers so eagerly, lax at his sides. “What’s the matter? Look at me,” she cried desperately. “Why are you like this, when I’ve come all this way to tell you something that will take all my courage to tell?” “Then you can spare your courage, for I know.” “Know! You can’t.” She was panting, wild. “What can you know that has changed you so?” “I know that it was your mother’s whose photograph was in Abbotsford’s room,” he said hoarsely. “I know why you fainted here in my arms when I talked of it. I know how you and she have made a fool of me; how you have deceived me for Wray.” “Wray!” She stared aghast. What did he mean? “I saw you last night--with Wray.” And at the look on his face the girl’s heart died within her. “You saw me?” Ismay repeated. “Last night--with Marcus Wray?” “Last night,” he echoed, “with Marcus Wray. He was alone with you in your sitting-room, holding your hand. And you, who say you hate him, lay looking at him so intently that you never knew I was there.” “You were there!”--her eyes wide, dilated, were almost stupid as she stared at him. “What brought you there?” “To see you! But as it was an inconvenient moment”--with a short, angry laugh--“I did not intrude.” “Miles,” she cried, “I had a reason; I held his hand for a purpose.” “I do not doubt it; you always have, I should fancy,” he said bitterly. “Had you the same purpose in the morning, when you let him kiss you in the hall, where the whole house might see?” “Kiss me? He never kissed me.” Her lips, no longer scarlet, were parted, her forehead suddenly livid. Kissed her, Marcus Wray? With a sudden dread she remembered she had dreamed of Cylmer, felt the tweed of his coat under her cheek. “Miles! Miles!”--with a revulsion that was agony. “I was asleep. I thought, I dreamed”--faltering--“it was you.” “You forget, he never kissed you”--disdainfully. “You say you slept. Do you think I, who loved you, would take advantage of your sleep to kiss you? But why talk of it”--with a quick, slighting motion of his hand--“since it is true?” Yes, it was true. Just as holding his hand last night was true, and yet hell was no falser. “Who told you?” she asked quietly, without denial or protest. “The person who saw you. And because I would not believe I went up-stairs to see you, and I saw--but I did not come to talk of what you know so thoroughly.” “Then why did you come?” For the first time her voice was unsteady. To his informant, as to Wray’s kisses, she never gave a thought; any one might have seen her as she slept. “I came to tell you that I knew it all, everything; that I see now that from the first day you have been your mother’s daughter. Forgive my rudeness; it is an easy way--of putting it.” “I don’t understand.” How cold it was growing, and how dark, she thought irrelevantly. Why could he not finish and go? He pulled a card from his pocket.