"No," he said quietly, "it's a plain truth. Westboro' has told me everything. I must think that he has done so. The man of me naturally condones him, and the friend in me is inclined to be lenient. But the justice and right, my dear Duchess, are all on your side."
"Oh, justice and right!" she dismissed, "only criminals need such words."
Bulstrode said cooly: "But Westboro' has been a criminal!"
"If he were," emphasized the Duchess, "didn't I forgive him?"
"Of course, you did, my dear," her friend agreed warmly, "how wonderfully, how beautifully, everyone knows. And he is all the more, therefore, dreadfully to be blamed."
She said passionately: "What do you mean, Mr. Bulstrode? How--why do you speak to me like this?"
Her extraordinary guest drank his tea with singular peace of mind.
"Why not?" he returned, his charming eyes on hers with the greatest tribute of affection and sympathy--"I've known you for years, I'm fond of you, you've been horribly wronged, and I'm going to see that things are made right for you. I've been very blind. I have longed for a reconciliation, I admit, with this husband who, poor stuff as he is, loves you still. But I see what a sentimental ass I've been, and how right you are."
She put her hand to her throat as if the soft lace suffocated her; she had grown very pale indeed.
"What," she gasped, "do you know of my plans and my intentions, Mr. Bulstrode? I have not told them to you."
"But I've been able to guess them," he replied.
"Oh, don't blame me," he returned. "Seeing you as I have all the while, I've been forced to make out something--to attach some reason to your living in this isolation. You've wanted, not unnaturally and very cleverly, I acknowledge, to see what's been going on at Westboro', what the Duke's been up to."
"Oh, stop, please! Whatever has come to you, Mr. Bulstrode, I don't know, or why you dare to speak to me as you do."
Seeing her agitation he said smoothly: "My dear child, you're so right in everything you've done, and of course I shall stand by you."
She made a dismissing gesture. "Oh, I don't need you, I don't want you."
He smiled benignly on her. "But I'm here, and I'm going to see you through."
"Through your divorce," he said practically.