Yes, for one moment I was in his arms--and his lips were on mine. And he
had kissed her--the same night perhaps. Her tainted kisses were on his
lips. And it was you who saved me! Dear sister, I owe you more than life--I
might have given myself to everlasting shame that night. God knows! I was
in his power--her lover--judging all women, perhaps, by his knowledge of
that----"
The epithet which closed the sentence was not a word for a woman's lips;
but it was wrung from the soreness of a woman's wounded heart.
Hyacinth flung herself distractedly into her sister's arms.
"You saved me!" she cried, hysterically. "He wanted me to go to Dover with
him--back to France--where we were so happy. He knelt to me, and I refused
him; but he prayed me again and again; and if you had not come to rescue
me, should I have gone on saying no? God knows if my courage would have
held out. There were tears in his eyes. He swore that he had never loved
any one upon this earth as he loved me. Hypocrite! Deceiver--liar! He loved
that woman! Twenty times handsomer than ever I was--a hundred times more
wicked. It is the wicked women that are best loved, Angela, remember that.
Oh, bless you for coming to save me! You saved Fareham's life in the plague
year.
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