“I? How could I guess her reasons—how could I imagine———?”
Mrs. Ansell raised her brows a hair’s breadth at that. “I don’t know. But as a fact, he didn’t ask—it was she who offered, who forced it on him, even!”
“Forced her going on him?”
“In a sense, yes; by making it appear that you felt as he did about—about poor Bessy’s death: that the thought of what had happened at that time was as abhorrent to you as to him—that she was as abhorrent to you. No doubt she foresaw that, had she permitted the least doubt on that point, there would have been no need of her leaving you, since the relation between yourself and Mr. Langhope would have been altered—destroyed. . .”
“Yes. I expected that—I warned her of it. But how did she make him think———?”
“How can I tell? To begin with, I don’t know your real feeling. For all I know she was telling the truth—and Mr. Langhope of course thought she was.”
“That I abhorred her? Oh—” he broke out, on his feet in an instant.
“Then why———?”
“Why did I let her leave me?” He strode across the room, as his habit was in moments of agitation, turning back to her again before he answered. “Because I didn’t know didn’t know anything! And because her
[ 604 ]
