"She did--but said, in the next breath, that it would be useless,
since the minds of the others were fully made up. I knew she thought
Winston arbitrary, and Mabel credulous; but she was afraid to
interfere. As for myself, what could I have told you that you had
not already heard? I could only hope that the cloud was not heavy,
and would soon blow over. From the hour in which it cast the first
shadow upon her, Mabel was estranged from me--the decline of our
intimacy commenced. The Ayletts take pride in keeping their own
counsel. Winston, who never liked me, and whom I detested, was as
confidential with me in this affair as my old playfellow and school-
mate. Believe me when I declare that if my intercession could have
availed aught with her, I would have run the risk of her displeasure
and Winston's anathemas by offering it."
"I do believe you! Nor need you expatiate to me upon the obduracy of
the Aylett pride. Surely, no one living has more reason than I to
comprehend how unreasoning and implacable I find it is. I looked for
injustice at Winston Aylett's hands. I read him truly in our only
private interview. Insolent, vain, despotic--wedded to his dogmas,
and intolerant of others' opinion, he disliked me because I refused
to play the obedient vassal to his will and requirements; stood
upright as one man should in the presence of a brother-mortal,
instead of cringing at his lordship's footstool. But he was
powerless to do more than annoy me without his sister's
co-operation."
"She stood in great, almost slavish, awe of him," urged Rosa, in
extenuation of Mabel's infidelity.
"Aye!" savagely. "And love was not strong enough to cast out fear!
She was justifiable if she hesitated to entrust herself and her
happiness to the keeping of one she had known but two months. It was
prudent--not false--in her to weigh, to the finest grain, the
evidence furnished by her brother to prove my unfitness to be her
husband. But having done all this, she should have remembered that I
had rights also. It was infamous, cowardly, cruel beyond degree, to
cast her vote against me without giving me a chance of
self-exculpation. Her hand--not his--struck the dagger into my
back!"
Again Rosa's fingers involuntarily (?) stole into his, to recall him
to a knowledge of where he was, and there were fresh tears, ready to
fall from her gazelle eyes, when his agitation began to subside.
"My poor child!" he said, penitently. "I am behaving like a madman,
you like a pitying angel! We will have no more scenes, and you must
oblige me by forgetting this one, as fast as may be. From to-night
Mabel Aylett is to me as if she had never been. To nobody except
yourself have I betrayed the secret of my hurt. After this, when yon
think of it, believe that it is a hurt no longer."