You know that what I say is true.
You heard the noise on the night of Whit-Sunday, and got up to see what
it was. You saw the white figure in the passage--it was Geoffrey Bingham
with Beatrice in his arms. Ah! well may she hang her head. Let her deny
if it she can. Let her deny that she loves him to her shame, and that
she was alone in his room on that night."
Then Beatrice rose and spoke. She was pale as death and more beautiful
in her shame and her despair than ever she had been before; her glorious
eyes shone, and there were deep black lines beneath them.
"My heart is my own," she said, "and I will make no answer to you about
it. Think what you will. For the rest, it is not true. I am not what
Elizabeth tells you that I am. I am _not_ Geoffrey Bingham's mistress.
It is true that I was in his room that night, and it is true that he
carried me back to my own. But it was in my sleep that I went there, not
of my own free will. I awoke there, and fainted when I woke, and then at
once he bore me back."
Elizabeth laughed shrill and loud--it sounded like the cackle of a
fiend.
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