Part 62 (1/2)
Instead of looking at me, he kept his head turned away; looking out over the sea. I could not make him out. He perplexed--he almost alarmed me.
”Have I offended you?” I asked.
He turned towards me again, as abruptly as he had turned away. His eyes wandered; his face was pale.
”You are a good generous creature,” he said, in a confused hasty way.
”Let us talk of something else.”
”No!” I answered. ”I am too deeply interested in knowing the truth to talk of anything else.”
His color changed again at that. His face flushed; he gave a heavy sigh as one does sometimes, when one is making a great effort.
”You _will_ have it?” he said.
”I _will_ have it?”
He rose again. The nearer he was to telling me all that he had kept concealed from me thus far, the harder it seemed to be to him to say the first words.
”Do you mind walking on again?” he asked.
I silently rose on my side, and put my arm in his. We walked on slowly towards the end of the pier. Arrived there, he stood still, and spoke those hard first words--looking out over the broad blue waters: not looking at me.
”I won't ask you to take anything for granted, on my a.s.sertion only,” he began. ”The woman's own words, the woman's own actions, shall prove her guilty.”
I interrupted him by a question.
”Tell me one thing,” I said. ”What first made you suspect her?”
”You first made me suspect her, by what you said of her at Browndown,” he answered. ”Now carry your memory back to the time I have already mentioned in my letter--when she betrayed herself to you in the rectory garden. Is it true that she said you would have fallen in love with Nugent, if you had met him first instead of me?”
”It is true that she said it,” I answered. ”At a moment,” I added, ”when her temper had got the better of her--and when mine had got the better of me.”
”Advance the hour a little,” he went on, ”to the time when she followed you to Browndown. Was she still out of temper, when she made her excuses to you?”
”No.”
”Did she interfere, when Nugent took advantage of your blindness to make you believe you were talking to me?”
”No.”
”Was she out of temper then?”
I still defended her. ”She might well have been angry,” I said. ”She had made her excuses to me in the kindest manner; and I had received them with the most unpardonable rudeness.”
My defence produced no effect on him. He summed it up coolly so far. ”She compared me disadvantageously with Nugent; and she allowed Nugent to personate me in speaking to you, without interfering to stop it. In both these cases, her temper excuses and accounts for her conduct. Very good.
We may, or may not, differ so far. Before we go farther, let us--if we can--agree on one unanswerable fact. Which of us two brothers was her favorite, from the first?”
About _that,_ there could be no doubt. I admitted at once that Nugent was her favorite. And more than this, I remembered accusing her myself of never having done justice to Oscar from the first.
[Note.--See the sixteenth chapter, and Madame Pratolungo's remark, warning you that you would hear of this circ.u.mstance again.--P.]