I didn't escape it, for Madge was
saying--
"Can you conceive of a man pretending to care for a girl and yet
treating her so? I can't tell you the grief, the mortification, I
have endured." She spoke with a half-sob in her throat, as if she was
struggling not to cry, which made me wish I had never been born. "It's
been all I could do to control myself in his presence, I have come so
utterly to hate and despise him," she added.
"I don't wonder," growled Lord Ralles. "My only surprise is--"
With that they passed out of hearing again, leaving me fairly
desperate with shame, grief, and, I'm afraid, with anger.
I felt at once guilty and yet wronged. I knew my conduct on the trail
must have seemed to her ungentlemanly because I had never dared
to explain that my action there had been a pure bluff, and that I
wouldn't have really searched her for--well, for anything; but though
she might think badly of me for that, yet I had done my best to
counter-balance it, and was running big risks, both present and
eventual, for Madge's sake. Yet here she was acknowledging that thus
far she had used me as a puppet, while all the time disliking me. It
was a terrible blow, made all the harder by the fact that she was
proving herself such a different girl from the one I loved--so
different, in fact, that, despite what I had heard, I couldn't quite
believe it of her, and found myself seeking to extenuate and even
justify her conduct. While I was doing this, they came within hearing,
and Lord Ralles was speaking.
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