I tell you this," he added, slightly flushing as Mrs. Tucker
turned impatiently away, "only to show you that legally he has no
rights, and you need not see him unless you choose. I could not stop
his coming without perhaps doing you more harm than good; but when he
does come, my presence under this roof as your legal counsel will
enable you to refer him to me." He stopped. She was pacing the corridor
with short, impatient steps, her arms dropped, and her hands clasped
rigidly before her. "Have I your permission to stay?"
She suddenly stopped in her walk, approached him rapidly, and fixing
her eyes on his, said:
"Do I know _all_, now--everything?"
He could only reply that she had not yet told him what she had heard.
"Well," she said scornfully, "that my husband has been cruelly imposed
upon--imposed upon by some wretched woman, who has made him sacrifice
his property, his friends, his honor--everything but me!"
"Everything but whom?" gasped Poindexter.
"But ME!"
Poindexter gazed at the sky, the air, the deserted corridor, the stones
of the _patio_ itself, and then at the inexplicable woman before him.
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