You led me to suspect it."
"I remember--"
"I questioned Peppina. I made her tell me."
He said nothing for a moment. Then, with an effort, he said:
"You knew we had kept those two things from you, Vere and I?"
"Vere and you--yes."
Now he understood almost all, or quite all, that had been strange to
him in her recent conduct.
"Sometimes--have you almost hated us for keeping those two secrets?"
"I don't think I have ever hated Vere."
"But me?"
"Do you know why I told Vere she might read your books?"
"Why?"
"Because I thought they might make her feel differently towards you."
"Less--less kindly?"
"Yes."
She spoke very quietly, but he felt--he did not know why--that it had
cost her very much to say what she had said.
"You wanted Vere to think badly of me!"
He was honoring her for the moral courage which enabled her to tell
him. Yet he felt as if she had struck him. And so absolutely was he
accustomed to delicate tenderness, and the most thoughtful, anxious
kindness from her, that he suffered acutely and from a double
distress.
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