"And cruelty?" She nodded.
"Who are my victims?"
She said nothing.
"Whose tales have you been listening to, Lady Kitty?"
She mentioned the name of a French lady. Cliffe changed countenance.
"Ah, well, if you have been talking to her," he said, haughtily, "you
may well expect to see me appear as Diabolus in person."
"No. But it's since then that I've read the poems again. You see, you
tell the public so much--"
"That you think you have the right to guess the rest?" He paused, then
added, with impatience, "Don't guess, Lady Kitty. You have everything
that life can give you. Let my secrets alone."
There was silence. Kitty looking round her saw that Madeleine Alcot was
entertaining her other guests, and that she and Cliffe were unobserved.
Suddenly Cliffe bent towards her, and said, with roughness, his face
struggling to conceal the feeling behind it:
"You heard--and you believed--that I tormented her--that I killed her?"
The anguish in his eyes seemed to strike a certain answering fire from
Kitty's.
"Yes, but--"
"But what?"
"I didn't think it very strange--"
Cliffe watched her closely.
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