"Have you dared to visit my desk?" he gasped--"break my seals? Are you
mad?"
"Hark at him!" she cried. "He calls me to account for just lifting the
lid of a desk! But what is he? A villain--a thief--a spy--a murderer--and
worse than any of them! Ah, ha, my lady!" nodding her false front at
Lady Hartledon, who stood as one petrified, "you stare there at me with
your open eyes; but you don't know what you are! Ask _him_! What was
Maude--Heaven help her--my poor Maude? What was she? And _you_ in the
plot; you vile Carr! I'll have you all hanged together!"
Lord Hartledon caught his wife's hand.
"Carr, stay here with her and tell her all. No good concealing anything
now she has read this letter. Tell her for me, for she would never listen
to me."
He drew his wife into an adjoining room, the one where the portrait of
George Elster looked down on its guests. The time for disclosing the
story to his wife had been somewhat forestalled. He would have given half
his life that it had never reached that other woman, miserable old sinner
though she was.
"You are trembling, Anne; you need not do so. It is not against you that
I have sinned."
Yes, she was trembling very much. And Val, in his honourable, his
refined, shrinking nature, would have given his life's other half not
to have had the tale to tell.
It is not a pleasant one. You may skip it if you please, and go on to the
last page.
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