No man has a right to address a note to my wife that I may not see.
Show me that paper, Harriet."
"It is nothing"--she caught her breath in a quick, gasping, affrighted way as she said it--"it is nothing, Everard! Don"t ask me!"
"If it is nothing, I may surely see it. Harriet, I command you! Show me that note!"
The eyes of Captain Hunsden"s daughter inflamed up fierce and bright at sound of that imperious word command.
"And I don"t choose to be commanded--not if you were my king as well as my husband. You shall never see it now!"
There was a wood-fire leaping up on the marble hearth.
She flung the note impetuously as she spoke into the midst of the flames. One bright jet of flame, and it was gone.
Husband and wife stood facing each other, he deathly white, she flushed and defiant.
"And this is the woman I loved--the wife I trusted--my bride of one short month."
He had turned to quit the room, but two impetuous arms were around his neck, two impulsive lips covering his face with penitent, imploring kisses.
"Forgive me--forgive me!" Harriet cried. "My dear, my true, my cherished husband! Oh, what a wicked, ungrateful creature I am! What a wretch you must think me! And I can not--I can not--I can not tell you."
She broke out suddenly into a storm of hysterical crying, clinging to his neck.
He took her in his arms, sat down with her on the sofa, and let her sob herself still.
"And now, Harriet," he said, when the hysterical sobs were hushed, "who is this man, and what is he to you?"
"He is nothing to me--less than nothing! I hate him!"
"Where did you know him before?"
"Know him before?" She sat up and looked him half angrily in the face.
"I never knew him before! I never set eyes on him until I saw him here."
Sir Everard drew a long breath of relief. No one could doubt her truth, and his worst suspicion was at rest.
"Then what is this secret between you two? For there is a secret, Harriet."
"There is."
"What is it, Harriet?"
"I can not tell you."
"Harriet!"
"I can not." She turned deathly white as she said it. "Never, Everard! There is a secret, but a secret I can never reveal, even to you. Don"t ask me--don"t! If you ever loved me, try and trust me now!"
There was a blank pause. She tried to clasp him, but he held her sternly off.
"One question more: You knew this secret before you married me?"
"I did."
"For how long?"
"For a year."
"And that picture the American showed you is a picture you know."
She looked up at him, a wild startled light in her great gray eyes.
"How do you know that?"
"I am answered," he said. "I see I am right. Once more, Lady Kingsland," his voice cold and clear, "you refuse to tell me?"
"I must. Oh, Everard, for pity"s sake, trust me! I can not tell you--I dare not!"
"Enough, madame! Your accomplice shall!"
He turned to go. She made a step between him and the door.
"What are you going to do? Tell me, for I will know!"
"I am going to the man who shares your guilty secret, madame; and, by the Heaven above us, I"ll have the truth out of him if I have to tear it from his throat! Out of my way, before I forget you are a woman and strike you down at my feet!"
She staggered back, with a low cry, as if he had struck her indeed. He strode past, his eyes flashing, his face livid with jealous rage, straight to the picture-gallery.
A door at the opposite side of the corridor stood ajar. Sybilla Silver"s listening cars heard the last fierce words, Sybilla Silver"s glittering black eyes saw that last pa.s.sionate gesture of repulsion.
She saw Harriet, Lady Kingsland--the bride of a month--sink down on the oaken floor, quivering in anguish from head to foot; and her tall form seemed to tower and dilate with diabolical delight.
"Not one year," she cried to her exultant heart--"not one month will I have to wait for my revenge! Lie there, poor fool! and suffer and die, for what I care, while I go and prevent your madly jealous husband from braining my precious fiance. There is to be blood on the hands and the brand of Cain on the brow of the last of the Kingslands, or my oath will not be kept; but it must not be the ign.o.ble blood of George Washington Parmalee!"
CHAPTER XX.
MR. PARMALEE SWEARS VENGEANCE.
Sir Everard strode straight to the picture-gallery, his face pale, his eyes flashing, his hands clinched.
His step rang like steel along the polished oaken floor, and there was an ominous compression of his thin lips that might have warned Mr.
Parmalee of the storm to come. But Mr. Parmalee was squinting through his apparatus at a grim, old warrior on the wall, and only just glanced up to nod recognition.
"Morning, Sir Everard!" said the artist, pursuing his work. "Fine day for our business--uncommon spring-like. You"ve got a gay old lot of ancestors here, and ancestresses; and stunningly handsome some of "em is, too."
"Spare your compliments, sir," said the baronet, in tones of suppressed rage, "and spare me your presence here for the future altogether! The sooner you pack your traps and leave this, the surer you will be of finding yourself with a sound skin."