"I fear you must have been very ill. How--how changed you are!"
Livingstone was, indeed, fearfully altered. The healthy brown of his complexion had given place to a dull, opaque pallor; there were great hollows under the prominent cheek-bones, and his loose dressing-robe of black velvet hung straight down from the gaunt angles of the immense joints and bones. His voice sounded deeper than ever as he replied,
"Yes, I have been very ill, and I am utterly changed. But you must have had something more important to say to me, or you would hardly have ventured on this step."
She was getting very nervous--inexplicably so for her, who generally kept her head, while she made others lose theirs,
"No. I only wished--" she hesitated, trying to force a smile, and then broke off suddenly--"Guy, do speak kindly to me. Don't look at me so strangely."
"I will speak, then. Miss Bellasys, on what authority from me did you venture to interfere in my concerns so far as to intercept my correspondence?"
She tried denial still; it was her way; she always _would_ do it, even when it could avail nothing--perhaps to gain time.
Livingstone interrupted her, with a curl of contempt on his lip.
"Stop, I beg of you. It is useless to stoop lower than you have done already. I have Willis's written confession here. Ah! I know your talents too well to accuse you without material proof."
She raised her head, haughtily enough now. There was something Spartan about that girl. She had such an utter recklessness of exposure--it was in failure that she felt the shame.
"At least _you_ ought not to reproach me. You might guess my motive--my only one--without forcing me to confess it. Have I not gratified your pride enough already?"
"You know that is not the question," Guy answered, gravely. "Yet you are half right. I could not reproach you for any fair, honest move. In much, I own myself more guilty than you. But this is very different. Miss Bellasys, you must have distrusted greatly your own powers of fascination before you stooped to such cruel treachery."
"I did not know what I was doing," she whispered; "I did not know she was dying. Ah! Guy, have pity!"
"But you knew it might kill her to find her letter--such a letter--unanswered. You knew what she must have suffered before she wrote it. You did all this in cold blood, and now you say to me, 'Have pity!' If an accountable being--not a woman and her miserable instrument--had wronged me so, I would have risked my soul to have revenge; and, because that is impossible, you think that I feel less bitterly? You might have known me better by this time."