'
'Great Scot! When?'
'To-night. I found out his true character. He is cruel and
treacherous. Something happened--it may sound nothing to you, but
it gave me an insight into what he really was. Polly Wetherby had
a little monkey, and just because it bit Mr Pickering he shot it.'
'Pickering!'
'Yes. He wasn't the sort of man I should have expected to do a
mean, cruel thing like that. It sickened me. I gave him back his
ring then and there. Oh, what a relief it was! What a fool I was
ever to have got engaged to such a man.'
Bill was puzzled. He was one of those simple men who take their
fellows on trust, but who, if once that trust is shattered, can
never recover it. Like most simple men, he was tenacious of ideas
when he got them, and the belief that Claire was playing fast and
loose was not lightly to be removed from his mind. He had found
her out during his self-communion that night, and he could never
believe her again. He had the feeling that there was something
behind what she was saying. He could not put his finger on the
clue, but that there was a clue he was certain.
'I only got engaged to him out of pique. I was angry with you,
and--Well, that's how it happened.'
Still Bill could not believe. It was plausible. It sounded true.
And yet some instinct told him that it was not true.
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