"Mr.Leyton thought he ought to write to my uncle something positive as to your prospects with Mr.
Rushbrook, and"-- "You came here to inquire ?" said the young man, sharply.
"I came here to stop any inquiry," said Grace, indignantly.

"I came here to say I was satisfied with what you had confided to me of Mr.
Rushbrook's generosity, and that was enough!" "With what I had confided to you?
You dared say that ?" Grace stopped, and instantly faced him.

But any indignation she might have felt at his speech and manner was swallowed up in the revulsion and horror that overtook her with the sudden revelation she saw in his white and frightened face.

Leyton's strange inquiry, Rushbrook's cold composure and scornful acceptance of her own credulousness, came to her in a flash of shameful intelligence.

Somers had lied! The insufferable meanness of it! A lie, whose very uselessness and ignobility had defeated its purpose--a lie that implied the basest suspicion of her own independence and truthfulness--such a lie now stood out as plainly before her as his guilty face.
"Forgive my speaking so rudely," he said with a forced smile and attempt to recover his self-control, "but you have ruined me unless you deny that I told you anything.