“You have reason to fear me!” he said, in a hoarse, unnatural voice.  “Wives have been murdered for less than this!”

Sybilla and Edwards heard the ominous words, and looked blankly in each other’s faces.  They heard no more.  The baronet caught his wife’s wrist in a grasp of iron, drew her into the dressing-room, and closed the door.  He stood with his back to it, gazing at her, his blue eyes filled with lurid rage.

“Where have you been?”

He asked the question in a voice more terrible from its menacing calm than any wild outburst of fury.

“In the Beech Walk,” she answered, promptly.

“With whom?”

“With Mr. Parmalee.”

Her glance never fell.  She looked at him proudly, unquailingly, full in the face.  The look in his flaming eyes, the tone of his ominous voice, were bitterly insulting, and with insult her imperious spirit rose.

“And you dare stand before me—­you dare look me in the face,” he said, “and tell me this?”

“I dare!” she said, proudly.  “You have yet to learn what I dare do, Sir Everard Kingsland!”

She drew herself up in her beauty and her pride, erect and defiant.  Her long hair fell loose and unbound, her face was colorless as marble; but her dark eyes were flashing with anger and wounded pride, and at her brightest she had never looked more beautiful than she did now.

“So beautiful and so lost!” he said, bitterly.  “So utterly deceitful and depraved!  Surely what they tell of her mother must be true.  The taint of dishonor is in the blood!”

The change was instantaneous.  The pallor of her face turned to a burning red.  She clasped her hands with a sudden spasm over her heart.

“My mother!” she gasped.  “What do you say of her?”

“What they say of you—­that she was a false and wicked wife.  Deny it if you can.”

“No,” she said, with an imperial gesture of scorn, “I deny nothing.  If my husband can believe such a vile slander of his wife of a month, let it be.  I scorn to deny what he credits so easily.”

“I am afraid it would tax even your invention, my lady, to deny these very plain facts.  I leave you in your room, too ill to leave it, too ill by far to ride with me to my mother’s, but not too ill to get up and meet your lover—­shall I say it, madame?—­clandestinely in the Beech Walk as soon as I am gone!  You should be a little more careful, madame, and make sure before you hold those confidential tete-a-tetes, that the servants are not listening and looking on.  Lady Kingsland and Mr. Parmalee are the talk of the county already.  To-night’s meeting will be a last bonne bouche added to the spicy dish of scandal.”

“Have you done?” she said, whiter than ashes.  “Have you any more insults to offer?”

“Insults!” the baronet repeated, hoarse with passion.  “You do well, madame, to talk of insults—­lost, fallen creature that you are!  You have dishonored an honorable name; betrayed a husband who loved and trusted you with all his heart; blighted and ruined his life; covered him with disgrace!  And you stand there and talk of insult!  I have loved you as man never loved woman before, but God help you, Harriet Kingsland, if I had a pistol now!”