"I had no idea that I could be so eloquent, Jack. But my
mind has become curiously clear during the last year--strangely and
unusually limpid and precise. Why, my poor friend, every plot of yours
and of your friends--every underhand attempt to discredit and injure me
has been perfectly apparent to me. You supposed that my headaches, my
outbursts of anger, my wretched nights, passed in tears--and the long,
long days spent kneeling in the ashes of dead memories--all these you
supposed had weakened--perhaps unsettled--my mind. . . . You lie if you
deny it, for you have had doctors watching me for months. . . . You
didn't know I was aware of it, did you? But I was, and I am. . . . And
you told them that my father died of--of brain trouble, you coward!"
Still he stood there, jaw loose, gazing at her as though fascinated; and
she smiled and settled deeper in her chair, framing the gilded
foliations of the back with her beautiful arms.
"We might as well understand one another now," she said languidly.
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