“You acted well, by your own confession,” said he. “You played the part of a true friend and lover by leaving her alone for a moment only in the company of that paragon.” “I oughtn’t to, I know.” He gave a high, grating laugh. “But, putting me on one side,” I began, when he took me up with the most intense acrid bitterness. “Why can’t I, indeed--you and all your precious kith and kin? Why did I ever save you from being knocked on the head in that thieves’ garden? I was happy before--God knows I might have been happy in another way now. You’ve proved the viper on my hearth with a vengeance. Put you on one side? Ah, I dare say that would suit you well--to shirk the responsibility of your own act and leave the suffering to others.” “I have suffered, Duke, and always shall. I won’t gainsay you--but this hurts me perhaps only one degree less than it does you. Why put the worst construction on it?” He gave another cruel laugh. “Let’s have your theory of her vanishing without a word to me,” he said. “At least you can’t be certain that it--it was my brother.” “How perspicacious of you! You don’t think so yourself, do you? Or that I should have meekly accepted that woman’s statement without some inquiry as to the appearance of the interesting stranger?” He dropped his cruelly bantering manner for one hard as iron and ferocious. “Let’s stop this double-faced foolery. I want his address of you.” “I haven’t got it, you know.” “You can’t guess at it?” “Not possibly. What would you do if you had it?” “What do you think? Call and offer my congratulations, of course.” “Don’t be a madman. You know nothing for certain. Wait and see if she doesn’t turn up at the office as usual to-morrow.” He seemed to think a moment, and then he threw up his hands with a loud, wailing moan. “Lost!” he cried. “In my heart I know it.” Did I not in mine? It had rung in my ears all night. I took a step toward him, greatly moved by his despairing, broken tone, but he waved me back fiercely. “I curse the day,” he cried in bitter grief, “that ever I came across you. I would have let you rob me--that was nothing to her happiness; but now----” “Let him look to himself,” he went on after a pause, in which he had mastered his emotion. “After to-morrow--I will wait till then--but afterward--the world isn’t wide enough to keep us apart. Better for him to run from an uncubbed tigress than this twisted cripple!” He tossed one arm aloft with a wild, savage gesture and strode heavily from the room. CHAPTER XXV. A LAST MESSAGE. Dolly never came to work the next morning, but there arrived a little letter from her to Mr. Ripley, giving notice, that was all, with no address or clew to her whereabouts, and an intimation that it was understood she sacrificed her position--pitiful heaven, for what?