"Ask me not that question!" she cried, with a shudder.
"If her ladyship will but sign this," said Luke Hatton, holding towards her the paper on which the names were written, "it will suffice for me."
"You hear what he says, Frances. You will do it?" cried Lord Roos. ""Tis but a few strokes of a pen."
"Those few strokes will cost me my soul," she rejoined. "But if it must he so, it must. Give me the pen."
And as Lord Roos complied, she signed the paper.
"Nov you may go," said Lord Roos to Luke Hatton, who received the paper with a diabolical grin. "You may count upon your reward."
"In a week"s time, my lord," said Luke Hatton, still grinning, and shifting his glance from the half-fainting Countess to the young n.o.bleman; "in a week"s time" he repeated, "you will have to put on mourning for your wife--and in a month for your mother-in-law."
And with a cringing bow, and moving with a soft cat-like footstep, he quitted the room, leaving the guilty pair alone together.
END OF VOL. I.