Chance
gave me knowledge of this; I spoke of it, but I did not know--how
could I guess?--they trapped and duped me. When I realised what I had
done, it was too late."
"It is perhaps a little difficult, Madame," said Sir Percy,
after a moment of silence between them, "to go back over the past. I
have confessed to you that my memory is short, but the thought
certainly lingered in my mind that, at the time of the Marquis' death,
I entreated you for an explanation of those same noisome popular
rumours. If that same memory does not, even now, play me a trick, I
fancy that you refused me ALL explanation then, and demanded of my
love a humiliating allegiance it was not prepared to give."
"I wished to test your love for me, and it did not bear the
test. You used to tell me that you drew the very breath of life but
for me, and for love of me."
"And to probe that love, you demanded that I should forfeit
mine honour," he said, whilst gradually his impassiveness seemed to
leave him, his rigidity to relax; "that I should accept without murmur
or question, as a dumb and submissive slave, every action of my
mistress.
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