Can you find me a candle?"--looking about her hurriedly
as she spoke. "But, indeed, it is no matter; I know my way to her room in
the dark, and there will be light enough from the great window."
"Stop!" he cried, seizing her arm as she was leaving the room; "stop!"
dragging her back and shutting the door violently. "Your sister is not
there."
"Great God! what do you mean? You told me your wife was here--ill--dying
perhaps."
"I told you a lie, sweetheart; but desperate men will do desperate things."
"Where is my sister? Is she dead?"
"Not unless the Nemesis that waits on woman's folly has been swifter of
foot than common. I have no wife, Angela; and you have no sister that you
will ever care to own. My Lady Fareham has crossed the narrow sea with her
lover, Henri de Malfort--her paramour always--though I once thought him
yours, and tried to kill him for your sake."
"A runaway wife! Hyacinth! Great God!" She clasped her hands before her
face in an agony of shame and despair, falling upon her knees in sudden
self-abasement, her head drooping until her brow almost touched the ground.
And then, after but a few minutes of this deep humiliation, she started to
her feet with a cry of anger.
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