Suddenly, as he read the lines
touching himself, "Brilliant and able and unscrupulous.... and though he
loves me little, as he loves you little too," his eye lighted up with
anger, his face became pale--yet he had borne the same truths from Faith
without resentment, in the wood by the mill that other year. For a moment
he stood infuriated, then, going to the fireplace, he dropped the letter
on the coals, as Hylda, in horror, started forward to arrest his hand.
"Oh, Eglington--but no--no! It is not honourable. It is proof of all!"
He turned upon her slowly, his face rigid, a strange, cold light in his
eyes. "If there is no more proof than that, you need not vex your mind,"
he said, commanding his voice to evenness.
A bitter anger was on him. His mother had read him through and
through--he had not deceived her even; and she had given evidence against
him to Hylda, who, he had ever thought, believed in him completely. Now
there was added to the miserable tale, that first marriage, and the
rights of David--David, the man who, he was convinced, had captured her
imagination.
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