“ ‘I have listened to you with patience, Mr. Holmes,’ said she. ‘The effect upon my mind is exactly as predicted. I am aware that Adelbert, that my fiancé, has had a stormy life in which he has incurred bitter hatreds and most unjust aspersions. You are only the last of a series who have brought their slanders before me. Possibly you mean well, though I learn that you are a paid agent who would have been equally willing to act for the Baron as against him. But in any case I wish you to understand once for all that I love him and that he loves me, and that the opinion of all the world is no more to me than the twitter of those birds outside the window. If his noble nature has ever for an instant fallen, it may be that I have been specially sent to raise it to its true and lofty level. I am not clear’—here she turned eyes upon my companion—‘who this young lady may be.’
“I was about to answer when the girl broke in like a whirlwind. If ever you saw flame and ice face to face, it was those two women.
“ ‘I’ll tell you who I am,’ she cried, springing out of her chair, her mouth all twisted with passion—‘I am his last mistress. I am one of a hundred that he has tempted and used and ruined and thrown into the refuse heap, as he will you also. Your refuse heap is more likely to be a grave, and maybe that’s the best. I tell you, you foolish woman, if you marry this man he’ll be the death of you. It may be a broken heart or it may be a broken neck, but he’ll have you one way or the other. It’s not out of love for you I’m speaking. I don’t care a tinker’s curse whether you live or die. It’s out of hate for him and to spite him and to get back on him for what he did to me. But it’s all the same, and you needn’t look at me like that, my fine lady, for you may be lower than I am before you are through with it.’
“ ‘I should prefer not to discuss such matters,’ said Miss de Merville coldly. ‘Let me say once for all that I am aware of three passages in my fiancé’s life in which he became entangled with designing women, and that I am assured of his hearty repentance for any evil that he may have done.’