Choose!"
For ever afterwards he was glad of that single look of reproach
which seemed to escape her unwittingly as her eyes met his. But
she turned away and his heart was like a stone.
"You have deceived me, Mr. Trent. I am very sorry, and very
disappointed."
"And you," he cried passionately, "are you yourself so blameless?
Were you altogether deceived by your relations, or had you never a
suspicion that your father might still be alive? You had my message
through Mr. Cuthbert; I met you day by day after you knew that I
had been your father's partner, and never once did you give yourself
away! Were you tarred with the same brush as those canting snobs
who doomed a poor old man to a living death? Doesn't it look like
it? What am I to think of you?"
"Your judgment, Mr. Trent," she answered quietly, "is of no
importance to me! It does not interest me in any way. But I will
tell you this. If I did not disclose myself, it was because I
distrusted you. I wanted to know the truth, and I set myself to
find it out."
"Your friendship was a lie, then!" he cried, with flashing eyes.
"To you I was nothing but a suspected man to be spied upon and
betrayed."
She faltered and did not answer him. Outside the nurse was knocking
at the door.
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