He flung the evil suggestion from
him, but it left a burning wound behind. There was no escape from the
fact that she was on terms of intimacy with the man with whom that
woman's name had been shamefully associated. And--remembering the
discomfiture she had betrayed at their meeting--he told himself bitterly
that she would have given much to have concealed that intimacy had it
been possible.
But here his loyalty cried out that he was wronging her. Juliet--his
Juliet of the steadfast eyes and low, sincere voice--was surely
incapable of double dealing! Whatever her life in the past had been,
however frivolous, however artificial, it had been given to him--perhaps
to him alone--to know her as she was. A great wave of self-reproach went
over him. How had he dared to doubt her?
The sea moaned with a dreary sound along the shore. A few heavy drops of
rain fell around him. Mechanically he quickened his pace. He came at
length down the steep cliff-path to the gate that led to the village.
And here to his surprise a shuffling footstep told him of the presence of
another human being out in the desolate darkness. Dimly he discerned a
bulky shape leaning against the rail.
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