“Hear me, Basil!” murmured Laurence, hoarsely. “What you say is monstrous--false to the core. The boy is _yours_--_yours_, do you hear me?” There was the ring of truth in her words now, but the man who listened had ceased to believe once and for all. A bad woman may inspire passion, but not the love that trusts and comprehends.
“How can I know?” came from the window, in a voice so altered that she did not recognize it, and abruptly started forward to see who had spoken. “How can I know,” went on the lifeless, monotonous accusation, “since you were always untrue? Had you, tired of my tenderness, yielded to a sudden impulse and given yourself to another, you might yet have had some shadow of an excuse, perhaps. You would have merely sunk, in so doing, to the level of those women who break faith because it is their whim or their nature to do so. But what of the crime committed by a free agent in accepting another man’s name, his love and trust, when it has become no longer possible to do so without black dishonor? You were talking a while ago of your poltroonery with regard to my peasants--my people here. What is that compared to the atrocious cowardice you were guilty of when you greedily accepted me as your husband--your best friend, your protector--knowing that you were no longer yours to dispose of, for a fortune or otherwise?”
“You are cruel--unfair, and you know it! There has been nothing, nothing, I tell you, that was serious between me and the--the--young man you named just now. He was a childhood’s friend, nothing more.”
Basil did not turn, he shrugged his shoulders wearily, that was all; and Laurence, cowed, daunted by this contemptuous silence, glanced apprehensively at those broad shoulders in a quick, haunted way.
“Oh,” she cried, “won’t you look round? Won’t you read the truth in my eyes? Take care, Basil, of what you are doing! Don’t push me too far!” The sentence that had begun in entreaty ended in a snarl of weak rage and menace that made Basil pivot on his heels and look at her with new surprise.
“I believe, God forgive me, that you are attempting to threaten me!” he said, holding back his anger with a strong effort.
She was hanging her head, but not in shame; her hands were clasped between her knees, upon which the thin material of her dress drew tightly, and she glanced up at him through her eyelashes.