“What!  Do you not believe me?” asks she, her eyes blazing.

“I believe you?  Yes,” returns her quickly.  “But there is this——­”

“There is this, too,” interrupting him passionately.  “You accuse me of deception most wrongfully, and I—­I accuse you of the worst thing of all, of listening behind my back—­of listening deliberately to what was never meant for you to hear.”

“I did not listen,” says Rylton, who is now very white.  “It so chanced that I stood near the arbour; but I heard only one word, and it was about some secret.  I came away then.  I did not stay.”

Tita turns to him with a vehemence that arrests him.

“Who brought you to the arbour?” asks she.

“Brought me?”

“Yes.  Who brought you?”

“What do you mean?” asks Rylton, calmly enough, but with a change of colour.

“Ah! you will not betray her, but I know.  It was Mrs. Bethune.  Now”—­she goes nearer to him, her pretty, childish face transformed by grief and anger—­“now, confess, it was!" She draws back again.  “No,” says she, sighing disconsolately.  “No, of course you would not tell.  But I,” looking back at him reproachfully, "I—­told you—­things.”

“Many things,” returns he coldly—­unreasonably angry with her because of her allusion to Mrs. Bethune; “and hardly to your credit.  Why should you tell Mr. Hescott your secrets?  Why is he to be your confidant?”

“I have known Tom all my life.”

“Nevertheless, I object to him as a special friend for you.  I don’t think married women should have special friends of the other sex.  I object to your confiding in him secrets that you never told to me.  You said nothing to me of Margaret’s love affairs, although she is my cousin.”

“You forget, Maurice.  I spoke to you several times, but you never seemed to care.  And I should not have told Tom, only he called her an old maid, and that hurt me, and I wanted to show him how it was.  I love Margaret, and I—­I am fond of Tom, and——­”

The hesitation, though unmeant, is fatal.  Rylton turns upon her furiously.

“It is of no consequence to me whom you love or whom you—­care for,” says he, imitating her hesitation, with a sneer.  “What is of consequence to me, is your conduct as my wife, and that I object to altogether!”

There is a long pause, and then—­

"My conduct?” says she slowly.  She lifts her hands and runs them softly though her loose hair, and looks at him all the time; so standing, few could vie with her in beauty.  She pauses.  “And yours?” asks she.

“Mine?”

“Yes, yours!  I don’t know what you mean about my conduct.  But you, you have been dancing all the night with that horrid Mrs. Bethune.  Yes!”—­letting her hands fall, and coming towards him with a face like a little angry angel—­“you may say what you like, but you have been dancing all night with her.  And she is horrid.”