No Name eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 995 pages of information about No Name.

No Name eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 995 pages of information about No Name.
who can speak to her identity, and to the identity of her companion, Mrs. Bygrave; and who has furnished me, at my own request, with a written statement of facts, which she is ready to affirm on oath if any person ventures to contradict her.  You shall read the statement, Mr. Noel, if you like, when you are fitter to understand it.  You shall also read a letter in the handwriting of Miss Garth—­who will repeat to you personally every word she has written to me—­a letter formally denying that she was ever in Vauxhall Walk, and formally asserting that those moles on your wife’s neck are marks peculiar to Miss Magdalen Vanstone, whom she has known from childhood.  I say it with a just pride—­you will find no weak place anywhere in the evidence which I bring you.  If Mr. Bygrave had not stolen my letter, you would have had your warning before I was cruelly deceived into going to Zurich; and the proofs which I now bring you, after your marriage, I should then have offered to you before it.  Don’t hold me responsible, sir, for what has happened since I left England.  Blame your uncle’s bastard daughter, and blame that villain with the brown eye and the green!”

She spoke her last venomous words as slowly and distinctly as she had spoken all the rest.  Noel Vanstone made no answer—­he still sat cowering over the fire.  She looked round into his face.  He was crying silently.  “I was so fond of her!” said the miserable little creature; “and I thought she was so fond of Me!”

Mrs. Lecount turned her back on him in disdainful silence.  “Fond of her!” As she repeated those words to herself, her haggard face became almost handsome again in the magnificent intensity of its contempt.

She walked to a book-case at the lower end of the room, and began examining the volumes in it.  Before she had been long engaged in this way, she was startled by the sound of his voice, affrightedly calling her back.  The tears were gone from his face; it was blank again with terror when he now turned it toward her.

“Lecount!” he said, holding to her with both hands.  “Can an egg be poisoned?  I had an egg for breakfast this morning, and a little toast.”

“Make your mind easy, sir,” said Mrs. Lecount.  “The poison of your wife’s deceit is the only poison you have taken yet.  If she had resolved already on making you pay the price of your folly with your life, she would not be absent from the house while you were left living in it.  Dismiss the thought from your mind.  It is the middle of the day; you want refreshment.  I have more to say to you in the interests of your own safety—­I have something for you to do, which must be done at once.  Recruit your strength, and you will do it.  I will set you the example of eating, if you still distrust the food in this house.  Are you composed enough to give the servant her orders, if I ring the bell?  It is necessary to the object I have in view for you, that nobody should think you ill in body or troubled in mind.  Try first with me before the servant comes in.  Let us see how you look and speak when you say, ’Bring up the lunch.’”

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Project Gutenberg
No Name from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.