"Our BUSINESS?" he repeated, ignoring her gentler meaning with a changed
emphasis and a look of suspicion.
"Yes," said Grace, a little impatiently. "Mr. Leyton thought he ought
to write to my uncle something positive as to your prospects with Mr.
Rushbrook, and"--
"You came here to inquire?" said the young man, sharply.
"I came here to stop any inquiry," said Grace, indignantly. "I came
here to say I was satisfied with what you had confided to me of Mr.
Rushbrook's generosity, and that was enough!"
"With what I had confided to you? You dared say that?"
Grace stopped, and instantly faced him. But any indignation she might
have felt at his speech and manner was swallowed up in the revulsion and
horror that overtook her with the sudden revelation she saw in his
white and frightened face. Leyton's strange inquiry, Rushbrook's cold
composure and scornful acceptance of her own credulousness, came to her
in a flash of shameful intelligence. Somers had lied! The insufferable
meanness of it! A lie, whose very uselessness and ignobility had
defeated its purpose--a lie that implied the basest suspicion of her
own independence and truthfulness--such a lie now stood out as plainly
before her as his guilty face.
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