I tried to continue, but his eyes were on me; his deadly smile that hides everything was set, hard, and unwavering on his broad, smooth face. My distrust of his unfathomable falseness, my sense of my own degradation in stooping to conciliate his wife and himself, so disturbed and confused me, that the next words failed on my lips, and I stood there in silence.

“I beg you on my knees to say no more, Miss Halcombe⁠—I am truly shocked that you should have thought it necessary to say so much.” With that polite speech he took my hand⁠—oh, how I despise myself! oh, how little comfort there is even in knowing that I submitted to it for Laura’s sake!⁠—he took my hand and put it to his poisonous lips. Never did I know all my horror of him till then. That innocent familiarity turned my blood as if it had been the vilest insult that a man could offer me. Yet I hid my disgust from him⁠—I tried to smile⁠—I, who once mercilessly despised deceit in other women, was as false as the worst of them, as false as the Judas whose lips had touched my hand.