“But she is ill.”

“Bosh!  She’s shamming.  She’s afraid to show her wicked, plotting face.  She’s lying there to concoct some new villainy.  I won’t spare her—­she didn’t spare you.  I’ll send her packing, bag and baggage, before the week’s out.”

“And if she refuses to go, guardy?”

“Then,” cried Mr. Walraven, with flashing eyes, “I’ll make her go.  I’ll have a divorce, by Heaven!  She’ll find she can’t commit high felonies in this enlightened age and go unpunished.  I’d see her boiled alive before I’d ever live with her again.”

With which spirited declaration Mr. Walraven finished his breakfast and arose.  His first proceeding was to ring the bell violently.  One of the kitchen damsels answered.

“Go to Mrs. Walraven’s room and tell her Mr. Walraven is coming to see her.”

The girl, looking rather surprised, hastened to obey.

Mr. Walraven took a turn or two up and down the room, “nursing his wrath to keep it warm.”

“The more I think of this infernal business, Mollie,” he burst out, “the more enraged I get.  If Doctor Oleander was so madly in love with you that he carried you off to prevent your marrying any one else, one might find some excuse for him.  Love, we all know, is a ’short-lived madness.’  But for her, a woman, to invent that diabolical scheme in cold blood, simply because she hated you!  Oh, it was the work of an accursed harridan, and never to be forgiven!”

He strode from the room as he spoke, his face and eyes aflame, and stalked straight to the sleeping-room of Mme. Blanche.  One loud rap; then, before the attendant could open it he had flung it wide, and he was standing, stern as Rhadamauthus, above the cowering woman in the bed.

“Do you leave the room!” he exclaimed, turning savagely upon the girl; “and mind, no eavesdropping, if you have any regard for whole bones.  Be off!”

The frightened girl scampered at once.  Mr. Walraven closed the door, locked it, strode back, and stood glaring down upon his wife with folded arms and fiercely shining eyes.

“Well, madame?”

“Spare me, Carl.”  She held up her arms in dire affright.  “Forgive me, my husband.”

“Never!” thundered Carl Walraven—­“never! you base, plotting Jezebel!  The fate you allotted to Mollie Dane shall fall upon yourself.  You shall quit this house before the week ends, never to return to it more.”

“Carl!  Husband—­”

“Silence, madame!  No husband of yours, either now or at any future time!  This shall be our last interview.  We part to-day to meet no more.”

“Carl!  Carl! for pity’s sake, hear me.”

“Not a word, not a syllable.  All the excuses in the world would not excuse you.  I never loved you—­now I hate you.  After this hour I never want to look upon your wicked white face again.”

Blanche Walraven’s spirit rose with the insult.  She flung down the clothes and sat erect in bed, her black eyes flashing.